81 






IN THE MATTER 



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CHARUES PRESENTED BY CERTAIN PROFESSORS 



AGAINST 



THE PRESIDENT OF UNION COLLEGE. 



THE ARGUMENT 



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THE PRESIDENT'S COUNSEL, 



ESEK COWEN, Esq. 



ALBANY : 
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IN THE MATTER 



OF 



CHARGES PRESENTED BY CERTAIN PROFESSORS 



AGAINST 



THE PRESIDENT OF UNION COLLEGE. 



THE AEGUMEFT 



OP 



THE PRESIDENT'S COUNSEL, 



EsEK CowEN, Esq. 



ALBANY : 

CHARLES VAN BENTHUYSEN & SONS. 

1883. 



INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 



The histoiy of Union College shows that, of those predecessors of 
Dr. Potter in the presidency who were not soon raercifnlh^ with- 
drawn by death from its exacting responsibilities, all either resigned 
early and peremptorily ^or underwent the humiliation of trial and 
attempted removal. Dr. Nott's removal, in a career of signal pro- 
gress, was sought on the charge of untrust worthiness. Dr. Hickok, 
his successor, Avas tried on charges of incompetency made by college 
officers and others. The means were thus traditional and prepared, 
for attacking Dr. Potter with charges of both " untrustworthiness 
and incompetency." These assaults, and especially the last, Avere 
macle without regard to their injury to Alma Mater ; and have 
wearied, disgnsted and alienated many of the natural supporters of 
the College. Its authors have known, in their determination to rule 
or ruin, that such agitation might easily defeat the President's plans 
for relievinor the sfrave financial needs of the Colles^e, and thus 
(inducing absorption of its capital and permanent trusts by cur. 
rent expenses) soon make it bankrupt and close its doors. Certain 
of these persons had been influential in diverting the fortune of a 
resident Alumnus of Union to an Eastern University, with which 
he had no connection. The founder of the Parscms Scholarshi])s, 
and others, state that this present reckless movement has repelled 
endoAvments of a quarter of a million, at this period when endoAv- 
ments are essential to the progress of the institution. 

The attack upon President Potter resulted from his determination 
to remedy evils, to make Union, in the scholarship and character of 
its students and the recognized ability, refinement and influence of 
its Professors, the equal of any other institution, and in fact as Avell 
as in name, undenominational and unsectarian ; to fulfill, in short, 
the ideal of its founders and the promises of the Corporation. For 
eight 3^ears after his election he secured unanimous support and 
was lauded idso by the men now loud in abuse ; and he also 
obtained for the College a period of harmonious prosperity long 



needed. But inherited difficulties and animosities, and disputes as 
to the system of College government, were destined inevitably to 
reappear. Opposition to him began seemingly with the attempt of 
some Professors, in 1879, to subvert the laws and administrative 
policy enjoined by the Corporation and therefore maintained by 
the President ; but it has been increasingly characterized by sec- 
tarian prejudices, enmity and personal ambition. Though all the 
Professors who prefer charges against him were members of the 
Faculty in 1872, the College was already moribund in reputation 
and numbers v^hen Dr. Potter was inaugurated in that year. Not- 
withstanding their questionable influence and since 1879 their active 
opposition, it is manifest that he raised th« institution to its most 
promising position. It is hard to secure College discipline and 
progress, but though hampered by disloyal officers he has done it. 
He called the attention of the Corporation long since, to the need 
of radical measures to remedy the evils. 

It was not, therefore, until the persistent intrigues of these per- 
sons enlisted the aid of a considerable number of the Trustees, that 
any real danger to the College was to be apprehended. Their 
opportunity at length arrived. Under the advice of the tw^o Senior 
Trustees, a large share of the productive educational funds had 
been expended upon the Hunter's Point property, in which the 
Trustees named were personall}^ interested. Under the same advice, 
large pecuniary loans were made to certain co-owners of the same 
property. In one instance the College bond was given for one 
hundred thousand dollars for money advanced, which the College 
would have been forced to pay, except for a release secured at the 
instance of the President. Larger sums loaned from the educational 
resources are still due the College, together with their interest ; and 
even yet larger sums have been invested in the land speculation, as 
expenditures for salaries and so-called improvements which yield 
the College no income. It was to divert attention from all this and 
to prevent exposure, as it seems, that these parties have labored for 
the removal of the President. They attributed the loss of educa- 
tional income to the President's grants of free tuition ; Avhile in 
fact he had actually increased the income from students and new 
endowments. They also charged him with expenditures on build- 
ings which, planned before his birth, were begun (with college 
money voted for their erection) before his inauguration, their com- 
pletion being generally called for and directed by the Corporation. 



Reports were circulated' that the resources of the College had been 
reduced by one hundred thousand dollars in ten years, or annually at 
the rate of ten thousand dollars a year, as though this administration 
were responsible ; when in fact the reduction was caused by the 
recent payment of an obligation for one hundred thousand dollars 
contracted before this administration began and on motion of these 
two Trustees, for expenditures at Hunter's Point, where both owned 
property: one of them receiving from College funds a fee of one 
thousand dollars on this transaction, as also fees in other like or 
even more objectionable relations. No cost is excessive for adequate 
services, but the Treasury department challenged criticism by 
reason of excessive cost, incapacity, ill-success and the crowning 
curse of irresponsibility. All responsibility for transactions, how- 
ever profitable to private parties and harmful to the College, is 
shifted to the Committees and Corporation, which unintelligible 
financial reports have kept in ignorance of jiersonal profits made, of 
entanHino^ alliances and risks and of the critical financial condition 
of the College. The College Minutes and proceedings, however, 
fix the moral responsibility of these persons in the land speculation, 
with its assignment of choice lots, the advances for taxes and other 
personal benefits. 

The practical result of this mismanagement has been, that what 
the President secured to the College was offset by the sums sunk in 
speculation. Friends of the College began to remark on the use- 
lessness of giving money to it, and the President's efforts to secure 
endowments have been greatly impeded. 

He was not a member of the Finance Committee, nor had he any 
authority in the financial management, but in view of the evils which 
the financial condition and a study of the Records disclose, he felt 
called upon to make (May, 1880) the following communication to 
the Senior resident Trustee, Dr. J. T. Backus : 

" Members of the Finance Committee have called my attention 
" to the need that the colles^e should hold the certificates of resi- 
" due now standing in your name. Could you give them in whole 
" or in part, or arrange on moderate terms for their transfer to the 
" college, a great danger would be averted. It is said that principal 
" and interest upon the original investment have been paid in full ; 
*' that Judge Allen and Mr. Charles O'Conor have questioned and 
" that many of the alumni will question, if there is opportunity, the 
' ' right of a Trustee to have ownership in property which he has part 
*' in managing for the College Corporation, and that a gift from you 



" is requisite to begin the long-delayed movement in aid of the Col- 
" lege. You can best judge of the force of these considerations and 
*' of your own convenience in the matter, and what, if puix^hase is 
" requisite, should be the price." 

Judo^e Piatt Potter was referred to in this connection, and also 
the removal of the former Registrar and Assistant to the Treasurer, 
and the appointment (upon the Judge's request without due authority 
of the Board) of the Doctor's subservient nephew to his place and 
to the Secretaryship of the Board, with greatly increased expense 
and reduced safety and benefit to the College. These and other 
criticisms made by the President arousing the enmity of these two 
senior resident Trustees and of their nearly related subordinates ; 
the above-mentioned assistant and the former Treasurer with certain 
related Professors formed an opposition, comprising Trustees influ- 
ential in the board and malcontent Professors active with the Faculty 
and students ; the offices of the more active becoming centres of con- 
spiracy agains! law and loyalty. Prof. Webster disclaims being a 
leader, but says he has been very active. He does not deny having 
talked to students injuriously of the President. The picture of this 
ambitious schemer, amusingly delineated in these pages, would be 
found, it is believed, to be true to the life. 

The new Code was adopted June 22d, 1880. This Code, while 
in some respects defining and limiting the powei's and prerogatives 
of the President and settling some questions theretofore in dispute, 
still, to use the language of the Committee reporting it for adop- 
tion, contained no enactments " of a nature or tending to interfere 
with the traditional polity of the institution." With the adoption 
of this Code, it is fair to assume that it was hoped on the part of 
those giving it force that all further controversy would cease. This 
might have been the case had it granted, all that had been asked in 
the demand of 1865 ; or had there been no determination to con- 
tinue the struggle and achieve the demanded result notwithstand- 
ing the action of the Corporation. The principle originally raised 
for discussion and decision has been decided by the Corporation ; 
but the outcome and result of that heated controversy are shown in 
the present personal attack. 

It was further necessary to extend the disorganizing spirit to the 
alumni. This was practicable, since the President, absent obtaining 
means necessary to carry on the college and to strengthen the de- 
partments of seemingly loyal but secretly injurious Professors, was 



hardly known to many undergraduates to whom he was insidiously 
misrepresented. When at the College, disciplining students at the 
request of Professors and endeavoring to break up certain tradi- 
tional evils in student-life, he was left to bear all the odium which 
naturally arises among young men in such circumstances, who, a 
little later as graduates, were easily used against the President in 
any carefully concerted movement. By the Law of the College all 
teaching on his part is voluntary, and he has had little time to 
devote to it. 

The creation of Alumni Trustees was designed to secure needed 
harmony and support, but with machine methods, misleading gossip, 
and newspapers and rumors, any small politician introducing parti- 
san tactics into alumni elections may succeed in producing " fun 
for the boys," but at the risk of death to the college. From 1879 
onward, most candidates have owed the honor of alumni trusteeship 
to their subserviency to the malcontents. 

The minutes of the Board show that in 1881 and '82, before the 
formal charges against the President, the Board was informed by 
Professors and others of improper acts of the malcontent Professors, 
such as neglect of duty, breaches of law and truth, tampering with the 
records and speaking to students and others injuriously of the char- 
acter and works of fellow-members of the Faculty; to the discredit, 
among others, of Professors Lowell, Dean, Lamoroux and Copp6e, all 
of them Episcopalians, and also to the injury of Professor Lawrence, 
of the Eeformed Church, while upholding partisan officers' candi- 
dates of inferior ability and reputation. 

The removal from the college of a number of Pj-ofessors, all of 
them conscientious supporters of the President, and the death of his 
friends Professors Lewis and Jackson, led the malcontents to hope 
that by securing continued removals the impression might be pro- 
duced that all the Faculty had naturally and honestly united against 
the President. The scheme was to isolate him and to retain and admit 
only those opposed to him. Professor Foster, the oldest and ablest 
member of the faculty, had been threatened by his assistant profes- 
sor and annoyed by others, in their desperate eiforts to coerce him 
into this movement; similar treatment being experienced by several 
others connected with the faculty. Students, the college publica- 
tions and religious meetings were to some extent employed for like 
unworthy purposes. After years of preparation, the plot culmin- 
ated in placing the President on the defensive. But despite the 



desperation and numbers of the assailants, their able counsel and 
their advantage as prosecutors, the trial ended successfully for him. 
Under resolutions declared to mean the President's exoneration and 
adopted unanimously, the charges were dismissed without exception. 

The evidence proved the falsity or trivialness of the specifications 
and the insubordination of the c()mi)lainants. The President's firm- 
ness defeated the trick of the resolution requesting his resignation, 
which was introduced at a late hour in the absence of dissenting 
Trustees and Avas carried only by a minority of the full Board 
(8 out of 25) ; most of these eight being practically pledged to such 
action or having notoriously prejudged the case. The resolution 
was rescinded by the votes of permanent members of the Corpora- 
tion, representing all the principal College benefactions. It was 
fortunate for Union and for all college presidents, that Dr. Potter 
resisted injustice and did not seek by retirement freedom from future 
annoyance. And it is noticeable that Union, under its longer presi- 
dencies affording opportunity to work out wise plans, has made 
most progress. The Board unanimously pledged the President its 
support in furtherance of the harmony and prosperity of the insti- 
tution. 

Notwithstanding the Board's direction that the controversy should 
cease, yet, under the evident instigation of these discontented Pro- 
fessors, misleading articles have appeared in the public prints pur- 
porting to repiesent what occurred in the Executive session of the 
Board. The two Senior Trustees implicated in injurious financial 
transactions (some of which were formally brought before the Board 
in Executive session by a fellow Trustee) have widely circulated 
ex parte pamphlets which continue the agitation, while privately the < 
machinery of the disorganizers appears again to be in motion. The 
President has invariably declined to participate in partisan move- 
ments. His time and energies are devoted to the upbuilding of 
Union College and cannot be wasted in resenting or heeding gossip 
or participating in contests discreditable and harmful to the insti- 
tution. 

Prominent among the ablest and most influential oflScers of Union, 
have been Dr. Jackson, Dr. Taylor Lewis and Professor John 
Foster. While they have appreciated the services of Dr. Potter, 
they have not always agreed with him nor with the various Execu- 
tives with whom they have been associated. But loyal, frank and 
honorable, their course was always distinguished by conscientious 



and delicate regard for the character and reputation and rights of 
their associates and for the welfare of Abiia Mater. Long since, 
they partici])ated in Dr. Potter's efforts to arouse the Alumni and 
secure support for the College. Of late, as the result of matured 
plans and untiring efforts, gifts and bequests from Alumni and 
others to an unprecedented extent had promised the fulfilment of 
all their hopes. Suddenly, hut it is believed only temporarily, the 
work of building up the institution has been impeded by this move- 
ment, to which*the Senior Professor has given the historic title of 
the College ' ' Barn-burners." His characteristically able and humor- 
ous publication concludes as follows : " The movement of my col- 
" leagues seems to me, as I have often asserted, entirely uncalled 
" for and sure to result in evil and evil only ; and for these reasons 
*' has met from the first with my decided disapproval. 

"John Fostek." 

A number of gentlemen, connected with the Faculty, unprejudiced 
and numbering (and weighing in character) more than the cabal 
who made the charges, have attested their appreciation of the faith- 
ful and successful services of the President in a communication in 
which they speak as follows : 

We take peculiar pleasure in congratulating you upon your success in elevating 
the institution from an apparently hopeless condition to its present prosperity. Your 
judicious and instructive Review exhibits an energy, a tact and a constancy in the 
service of Union which deserve universal approbation. In spite of internal troubles 
inherited from former days and factiously promoted to injure you and your admin- 
istration, the facts are patent that you have raised for the College large endowments 
and equipments and that there has been a large increase in thenumber of students. 
It is due to your love for your Alma Mater and to the labors it has induced, that 
the institution has been able to bear the serious shocks from within and to prosper 
in spite of them. 

In the recent progress of college education in this country, the duties of a presi- 
dent have been greatly modified. His larger sphere of usefulness is in many in- 
stances incompatible with attention to interior details. Especially is this true in 
institutions like Union, needing endowment and indeed the means of providing 
daily bread. This view you have acted upon, and the results show that your 
course has been wise. We congratulate you upon having acted in the midst of 
diflSculties and trammels, with ability, integrity, honor and Christian forbearance. 

To President Potter. October 21st, 1882. 

While concurring heartily in the above from an intimaxe knowledge of the facts, 
I desire also to refer to the high estimate of your services by the late Professor 
Jackson, who repeatedly expressed to me his approval and appreciation of your 
ability, attainments and chs.racter, and further, his conviction that upon your ser- 
vices depended the restoration and upbuilding of Union College. 

Faithfully yours, S. T. BENEDICT, Curator. 



8 

The demand for College progress has been met, through Presi- 
dent Potter, by a total of invested endowments, including principal, 
interest and all gains, exceeding half a million of dollars ; the re- 
moval of liabilities exceeding a quarter of a million of dollars, and 
land provision to meet certain other liabilities. These benefactions, 
secured during the hard times, stand in contrast with two thou- 
sand dollars of endowments for 1862-72. Numbers have advanced 
from 85 to about 200. Alimini and Memorial Hall, and a Glypto- 
theka, have been added ; the Gymnasium and ^-esidences, the 
"Eastern Colonnades" with Library Hall; the improvement of 
buildings, grounds, equipments; the introduction of water and gas, 
bathing facilities, etc.; large additions to the Library, the Art and 
Culture department and the apparatus and collections ; the pro- 
vision of more than one hundred thousand dollars for student aid, 
and a large amount available for support of professors and depart- 
ments. The Nott Trust Fund excepted, Union since 1872 (the 
year of President Potter's inauguration) has gained more in gifts 
and endowments than in the entire previous three-quarters of a 
century." It is hard work to find mone}^ easy to find fault. The 
President has been active in building up the College, and his 
enemies in secretly building up a party to destroy it. 

The sort of evidence given and the spirit evinced in what Prof. 
Lawrence justly terms the persecution of the President, are appar- 
ent also from the following appeal. The Rev. Mr. Lawrence, an 
Alumnus, who received the Warner Prize Cup at the graduation, 
has been a faithful and respected Tutor, Instructor and Assistant 
Professor in the College. He appeals through a Trustee for justice 
and asks that the Corporation correct some of the "false testimony 
given for the prosecution in the trial, so that the foul slander upon 
my (his) reputation may be removed ; for, Rev. Dr. J.T. Backus tes- 
tified as to my work, and that testimony is simply false. Instead of 
taking pay for services I did not render, the trouble is, I discharged 
the full duties of a professor at half the usual c()m[)ensation." 

Tricky measures and pharisaic pretensions have characterized the 
movement, degrading the tone of college and student life and also 
seeking to impose upon the State Legislature. That "fraud," as 
Ex-Gov. Hoffman- pronounced it, which was practiced, it is 
stated, by the "redoubtable Colonel" upon the Legislature, that 
"steal" bill, led Trustees and Legislators, in securing its recall, 
to inform the Governor how the Colonel had falsely urged that 



9 

both sides favored the measure. In truth, it had been concealed 
from most of the Trustees. How much faith can usually be placed 
in the Colonel's vociferous statements, is seen in the following 
characterization of his performances : 

Ex-governor John T. Hofiman writes as follows : 

New York, March 26th, 1883. 

My Dear Sir : — I hear the Senate Judiciary Committee will give a hearing to par- 
ties interested in the so-called Union College bill to-morrow. I have denounced 
the bill as a fraud. I still so style it. It was an attempt to change the charter 
of Union College and to conceal the object in the title. The suggestion of change 
was never passed upon by the Board of Trustees nor even suggested to the Board, 
which had a meeting at the college less than three weeks ago and wilhin two 
weeks, I think, of the passage of the bill. 

It was rushed through both houses, as I understand, before it was printed^ and 
a large majority of the Board had no notice whatever of it. . It requires no proof 
to show that what is a fraud on its face is a fraud in fact. It is plainly unconsti- 
tutional, also, and its passage would be deplorable. 

Again, the Regents of the University have full power on the application and with 
the concurrence of the trustees to make any amendment to the charter, and in view 
of this fact the proposed bill is a piece of special legislation unnecessary and un- 
warranted. 

This secret tampering with the charter of an honorable and ancient educational 
corporation endangers its very existence, and if it could be successful in the Legis- 
lature would put in peril every institution of like character. 

Very respectfully yours, 

JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

Judge Landon writes as follows : 

Schenectady, March 22d, 1883. 

To Hon. Grovbr Cleveland, Governor, &c. : — The bill relating to the trustees 

of Union College is a trick to enable an ill-advised faction to steal control of the 

institution, and, if it becomes a law, in my judgment as a trustee it will effect the 

ruin of the college. 

Respectfully yours, J. S. LANDON. 

Mr. Clarkson N. Potter, a member of the Board of Trustees, had opportunity 
to know, and interest (personal and fiduciary) in knowing, just what was going 
on in the matters of the College. It will be impossible to make people believe 
that he has mis-stated anything or has misjudged anybody. Hence, it is pretty 
safe to conclude that the seat of the trouble is just where Clarkson Potter, after 
careful investigation, placed it ; to wit, in impracticable or mischievous members 
of the Faculty, and their allies in the Board, who have personal ends to serve. 
He wrote as follows, under date of June 17, 1881 : 

" The President is raising money and pushing the College in all directions, and 
there is a constant fire kept up in the rear. I was very reluctant to believe 
this ; but I hear constantly from alumni, from people who wish the College well, 
from inquiries from indifferent persons I caused to be made myself, and in other 

2 



10 

ways, of A disposition to embarrass and annoy the President, at the College, which 
has intended to break hira down or drive him out. I think I could specify in- 
stances which, if not heard of by you, would shock you and shock any fair- 
minded man. But if it were understood that men who are not satisfied with the 
College and do not like its policy and methods and cannot refrain from obstructing 
its prosperity, ought to go somewhere else, we should have peace in the land." 

Judges Earl and Danforth write as follows : 

Albany, N. Y., March 27th, 1883. 

Dear Sir : — I know but very little about the merits of the Union College con- 
troversy. As an Alumnus, I regret it exceedingly. But this I think I know, that 
the Legislature cannot apply a remedy adapted to the case and that any inter- 
ference by it would be most unwise. 

I have great faith that if the whole matter is left with the trustees, a conclusion 

will ultimately be reached which will save the life and prolong the usefulness of 

my Alma Mater. Respectfully, 

R. EARL. 

I agree with Judge Earl. 

GEORGE F. DANFORTH. 

Governor Hoffman telegraphed to Governor Cleveland immedi- 
ately on hearing of the Union College bill, " that it was unconstitu- 
tional," and adhered to his declaration that it was a manifest fraud; 
adding that " a charter was granted to the college in 1795 by the 
Regents of the University, and the college was endowed in 1805. 
At various periods since then, amendments have been made by the 
Eegents, but alwa3^s with the consent of the Board of Trustees, 
without which the amendments would not have been valid. These 
amendments provided for the appointment of the Governor, Lieu- 
tenant-Governor and other State officers, as ex-officio members of 
the Board of Trustees, and for other regulations. There have been, 
and can be, no changes of the charter except through the Regents 
of the University and by the consent of the Board of Trustees." 

Judge Landon concurred in the preceding opinion. He states : — 

" The law has been settled for 65 years. 

" The celebrated Dartmouth College case came before the Supreme 
Court of the United States in 1818. The argument of Daniel 
Webster, which he made for the College, established his reputation 
as a great Constitutional lawyer. 

' ' The United States Supreme Court held that the Legislature had 
no power to act, because the original charter was a contract, and 
the Constitution of the United States prohibits the making of any 
law to impair the obligation of a contract. Besides, the property 



11 

and privileges of the College were by the original charter vested in 
the old Board, and to take these from them and give them to the 
new Board, was to deprive the former of their property and privi- 
lefi^es Avithout their consent, and the Constitution also forbids that. 
If the legislature has the right to take away the management of this 
property and franchise from a Board composed in part of the State 
officers, and give it to a Board chosen by the alumni, it has the 
like risfht to ffive it to the Shakers or a Ladies' Readino- Circle. In 
short, it could take away the College from the present Board and 
give it to any base-ball club. 

" If this bill should become a law, the right of the new trustees 
to a seat in the Board will be contested. The Permanent Board 
are charged with a trust which they have no right to throw away. 
Any member can bring the matter before the courts. I hardly 
think its promoters will press it. They were hasty and perhaps 
angry, but they are not fools, and they cannot fail to see that the 
bill will involve the College in litigation : that the principle involved, 
if established, exposes every college in the land to confiscation by 
indirection, if the Legislature can be hoodwinked or controlled. 
The principle is too communistic." 

The remarks of the defense are enforced by the facts compiled 
in this Introductory Statement. 



Mt. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees : 

In the latter part of the year 1871, Eliphalet N. Potter was named 
by this Board as President of Union College. At that time, as the evi- 
dence discloses, the college was in the last stages of decay, owing no 
doubt largely to internal dissensions ; partly also to the rise of other 
well-endowed institutions ; partly to the loss of students, especially 
from the South, because of thfe civil war ; partly to advantages offered 
in technical instruction by other colleges to students pursuing a partic- 
ular course of study. The number of students had decreased to 85,> 
and the revenues had undoubtedly diminished in proportion. After Dr. 
Potter became President of the institution, success was achieved. In 
1881 the students had increased to 200, and the annual receipts from stu- 
dents rose from five thousand dollars to about eight thousand. In 1875, 
the President received the special thanks of the trustees for having 
added more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the endow- 
ment fund of the institution ; and it is also stated, in the same resolu- 
tion of thanks, that an equal amount had been added to the general 
fund of the college. The causes which converted this praised, thanked 
and popular President into an accused official on trial before you for his 
office and reputation, are worthy of being considered by every member 
of this Board and by every citizen of the community interested in this 
college or in educational institutions. 

What was the law of the college as to matters of discipline and gov- 
ernment prior to 1879 ? Up to that time the controll of the College 
was in the hands of the President with the result in this administra- 
tion of steadily improving order, scholarship and reputation. The 
President approved granting extended powers of government to the 
Faculty, and resisted the attempt to take them without the consent of 
the corporation, and the effort to usurp rights and duties essential to 
executive efficiency. I call your attention to the Statement of Facts 
compiled with strict impartiality from the evidence and prepared by 
an honored alumnus of the college. You will there see that the system 
of laws in force was the codification set forth by President Aiken. 
This time honored system these professors opposed, being determined 
to force upon the corporation and its President a system of government 
which, by request, the Hon. Glarkson N. Potter laid before the Board; 
although it seems that neither he nor the Board approved it and it was 
not permitted to become operative. I think, therefore, I am not unjust 
in saying that these complaining professors adopted in 1879 a deliber- 



ate policy of unlawful opposition. They determined that if they 
could not have an independent power from the trustees in the 
management or discipline of the college, they would not participate in 
either at the delegation of the President. Their position was, that if 
the President told them to do right, they would not do it ; that they 
would not serve G-od if the devil bid them do it ; and so a constant 
series of petty annoyances and complaints was kept up. They 
refused to join in keeping order in college service, permitted the 
students to run wild, and then blamed the President. This system 
of annoyance and oppression produced ill feeling between the 
malcontent members of the Faculty and the friends of the Presi- 
dent in the Faculty and elsewhere. The active promoter of this 
opposition secretly determined on his overthrow. Curious charges 
began to creep through the community ; charges that the President 
had been guilty of some extraordinary crime. Mismanagement 
of funds, as I understand, has been talked of; hints of dishonesty 
have been circulated ; and at the same time, nothing definite, nothing 
certain was ever avowed. Macaulay, in his celebrated essay on Mil- 
ton, declares that the secret of Milton's power is in throwing a vague, 
vast, undefined impression upon the imagination. Thus, when Satan 
is floating upon the burning lake, he does not say that Satan is as big 
as six whales, but he says, "he lay floating many a rood." And when 
he speaks of his spear, he does not say it is so many hundred feet long, 
but it is a piece of timber " to which the tallest pine, hewn on Norwe- 
gian hills to be the mast of some great admiral,- were but a wand." The 
charges that went floating through the community about President 
Potter were thus Miltonic, which, in this sense, does not mean " sub- 
lime." The advantage which President Potter receives from this pro- 
ceeding, and perhaps the only advantage is, that these vague, imagi- 
native charges have been brought down to some tangible shape, put 
before the public in feet and inches, so to speak, and made definite 
enough to be finally refuted. The time has gone by when the mal- 
contents of the Faculty, by shaking their heads and shrugging their 
shoulders, and using such expressions as " we could an if we would," 
or ." if we list to speak," or " and there be those that might," can pro- 
duce a vague impression upon the minds of students, alumni, and the 
community, of some diabolical crime committed by President Potter, 
which their tender souls would not permit them to define. 

We have their statements before us in which, after ten years' scru- 
tiny, they have collated whatever can be construed to the injury of 
the President. The work is their own, not that of this Board, which, 
when they arraigned the President, simply required them to present 
definite charges and specifications, such as could either be sustained 
or exploded and dismissed. 



I must speak here — not because I like to speak about it, but because 
it lies upon the threshold of this case — upon a matter about which 1 
would much rather be silent. In the course of this proceeding, certain 
of the Trustees have been called upon by the malcontents of the Faculty 
as witnesses; they have been called with the obvious purpose, if pos- 
sible, of placing President Potter in the position of being in a conflict 
with the very gentlemen who are sitting as his judges. I am aware 
that this is a peculiar tribunal. I am aware that, in many respects, it 
is not exactly like a court of justice. I am fully aware that relation 
to the President, long friendship with the President, personal unfriend- 
liness toward the President, expressions of hostility towards him 
were not supposed to be any reason for not permitting any trustee to 
sit upon the trial of these charges. An honorable man can easily get 
over mere bias. I have decided many a case in favor of parties I did 
not like and against parties I esteemed, and I expect to do so again. 
But when gentlemen, upon the trial of such a question as the veracity 
of a particular person, take the stand and testify to facts that are 
intended to impugn that person's veracity, and then go back upon the 
judgment seat and pass upon the effect of their own evidence, I submit 
that this is going clear beyond anything that reason or justice or law 
admits. Therefore I have said to my client, " I shall not examine you 
upon that question, either pro or con ; I shall not put you in the posi- 
tion of contradicting one of your judges ; I shall neither ask you about 
it on the stand nor off the stand nor anywhere else. From the fact that 
a trustee has taken the stand against you, you are precluded from 
coming forward and iiiving your own version of the transaction to 
which that person has testified. The only thing you can do is to let it 
go exactly as they §ay. It may be death to admit, but it is damnation 
to deny. In accordance with prudence and what I believe to be your 
best interests, I so advise you." I ask the members of this Board if 
they do not see that by this action of certain trustees this man was 
rendered unable to make any denial or serious modification of their 
testimony, and I hope that upon final decision some lover of justice 
upon this Board will make the only reparation possible, by moving to 
strike out the specifications testified to by any trustee upon the ground 
that by such action the defendant was embarrassed and handicapped in 
his defense. 

I have further declined to call trustees and many others who wished to 
testify in the President's behalf. I have advised him that the specifica- 
tions are frivolous and unworthy of being treated seriously or dignified 
by an accumulation of testimony ; while the President, vdth charac- 
teristic magnanimity, avoided in his testimony, as far as practicable, 
injuring the college or its officers; and, as his custom is, "when he 
was reviled, he reviled not again." 



6 

Having premised thus much, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, partly as 
indicating why we did not give certain evidence, and partly because I 
feel strongly the unjust and unfair position in which President Potter 
has been placed, I proceed to the specifications under the first charge. 

The charge is untrustworthiness. What is here meant by the word, 
it is impossible to say. In no place apparently does it bear its ordinary 
import, namely, that he had, by some misconduct, in reference to some 
particular trust, proved himself unworthy. The first and second speci- 
fications relate to transactions connected with a committee of the trus- 
tees and can hardly have sprung from members of the faculty. Both 
specifications refer to the same transactions, which could not have been 
better planned if the intention was to confuse, insult and trap the 
President and create material for cooking up these charges and speci- 
fications. All that is worthy of notice in all these specifications is 
dependent upon the reliability of the human memory in relation to oral 
conversations taking place weeks or months or years ago. Any lawyer 
knows, any one who has had any experience in obtaining and weigh- 
ing testimony knows that no more unreliable species of evidence can 
be imagined than the memory of man under such circumstances. 
When memory is so evidently infirm and bias so strong as in the case 
of one of the first witnesses. Prof. Pearson, the impropriety of the use 
made of him in this controversy by the opposition is apparent. 

The first and second specifications assert that the President mis- 
stated to Prof. Pearson as a reason for postponing a proposed committee 
meeting to a later day, that Mr Brownell was unable to attend, being 
sick ; and that afterward he also told certain members of the committee 
that Mr. Brownell was unable to attend. The evidence shows that the 
President understood from his brother Clarkson that Mr. Brownell 
would be unable to attend on the day named. 

When Prof. Pearson was on the stand, although carefully cross- 
examined, he did not recollect receiving the important letter which 
clears up this matter and exonerates the President. He recollected 
nothing of the interview he had with the President in consequence of 
it, although the letter was produced at the request of President Potter 
from among the professor's papers after the professor had denied its 
existence. Who had the best recollection as to what took place at this 
time ? President Potter, who recollected all about this letter, although 
he had no copy of it ? or Prof. Pearson, who had it, but testified as 
strongly that he had never received it, fully as strongly as he testified 
about President Potter's language in this interview ? 

Recalling the contradictory statements of witnesses for the prosecu- 
tion, the testimony they have asked to correct, the indications of 
inaccuracy or malice in what has occurred in these few days alone, a 
stronger case of untrustworthiness and incompetency is apparent 



against themselves than they have made out against the defend- 
ant, after nosing the offal of the college for a dozen years. The state- 
ment of facts treats at length of the first and second as well as the fol- 
lowing specifications. Th'erein will be found the facts of moment relat- 
ing to this matter. It is evident that the President simply sought to 
fulfill his executive duty, dealing, however, with persons of defective 
memory and hearing but not deficient in enmity and disloyalty. Evi- 
dently he was indifferent as to the time of meeting in question here and 
desired a full attendance and was consulting the convenience of all 
concerned. It is perfectly consistent that Mr. Brownell, whom the 
President thought unable to attend on the 14th but ready for the 26th 
(the word six, as the President pronounces it, sounding like sick), had 
changed his arrangements after learning the day of meeting preferred. 
The President had briefly explained his reasons for the postponement 
of the meeting, and the evidence shows that it was not until later that 
he saw Mr. Brownell's letter to the Secretary. It was a natural mis- 
understanding among the parties, which is exaggerated into the first 
and second specifications, and, as regards the President, affords not 
the slightest ground for a charge of untrustworthiness. 

The third specification need detain us but a moment. The President 
informed Prof. Pearson of the suggestion which the evidence shows 
was made in the Finance Committee meeting, that profit was made 
by the Treasurer when grantiiig loans of college money, or giving 
its credit. The President did not mean that a formal " charge " was 
made, and there is no evidence proving that he ever used the 
word " charge." There is nothing in the evidence of the prose- 
cution contradicting the evidence of the President, and noth- 
ing in any way untrustworthy in what the President said or did. 
Neither he nor any other witness has testified that no one connected 
with the college profited by the loans, accommodations and financial 
management by which so large a portion of its educational resources 
have ceased to yield income. The President's expressed disapproval 
of profits of this character, and the conversations upon which the third 
specification is based, took place some six years ago. There seems 
to be no statute of limitation at Union College. The evidence shows 
that the President told the exact truth. There is not the slightest 
room for the charge of untruthfulness, and I do not believe that 
there is a man on the Board who will claim for a single moment that 
there is. 

The fourth specification begins by declaring that "the President was 
derelict in his duty to the college and the Faculty ;" and proceeds to 
speak of a matter not of much moment, but of a kind which these 
professors generally put under the head of incompetency. Why this 
particular offense should be more untrustworthy than the rest of them. 



8 

or why the rest of them should prove incompetency any more' than this 
does, or why this charge should prove either untrustworthiness or 
incompetency, is something I find it very hard to understand ; but the 
charge is : 

" That the President was derelict in his duty to the college and the 
Faculty, in that, at a regular meeting of the Faculty, held on or about 
the day of , 1882, and subsequent to the destruction of the 

walk leading from the gate to South College, the President presiding 
at such meeting, a member of the Faculty there present made inquiry 
if any person then present had any personal knowledge as to the par- 
ticipants in such destruction ; to which inqui^:y no person claimed to 
have any such information ; whereas the fact was that the President 
was present at or about the close of such destruction and held conver- 
sation with one or more persons, students in the college, who were par- 
ticipants or lookers-on ; notwithstanding which, he failed to give infor- 
mation." 

If all this should turn out to be true, it does not seem to me that a 
very serious offense is defined. Whether or not it is a dereliction of 
duty for a President charged with special responsibilities, not to tell 
immediately to professors and others all he knows about a certain 
ofi'ense, depends upon circumstances of which he is to be the judge. 
It is a matter upon which I suppose reasonable and honest men may 
possibly diff'er. For instance, some professors think it was a derelic- 
tion of duty, and although perhaps it is not modest in me to face eight 
college professors, all at once, yet it is perfectly clear to me that it was 
in no sense a dereliction of duty. I suppose that it was a matter of 
simple discretion. As President of the college, he had the right to tell 
the Faculty what he knew about a particular breach of discipline, or he 
had a right to keep still ; and to say a man is necessarily guilty of an 
off'ense when he does not answer a question he might possibly answer, 
seems to me a very extraordinary proposition. I will not spend time 
upon such a charge as this. The charge simply shows the desperation 
of the gentlemen who make it, and their determination to magnify the 
merest trifles into seeming importance. 

I do not know, gentlemen, how long you have studied over the fifth 
specification of this charge against President Potter. If you have not 
studied over it a long time you will not understand it, because I 
studied over it a long time without understanding it, and I am by no 
means certain I understand it yet — there is so much mixing up of 
Prof. Dean and Prof. Webster and the resident Trustees and the 
Junior Latin and the Freshman Latin and Butler's Analogy. 

The evidence and specifications are reviewed at length in the State- 
ment of Facts. The letter from Dr. Dean is simply a memorandum as 
to his engagements, which the President, in the performance of his 



dutv, called for and received at the time of it^ date. I introdnced it 
without examination before I had been able to confer with him about 
this confosing specification ; and I therefore wanted an adjournment 
because I was examining at random. Dr. Backus in his testimony 
attempts a refined distinction between confer and conterse, and would 
leave the President in fault because, although conversing with resident 
Trustees, the committee of resident Trustees took no formal action ; 
while on the other hand the Secretary inadvertently admits that that 
committee had had but one meeting in twenty years. A Preadeut 
dependent upon meetings at such intervals is certainly in rather an 
exposed position. It is one of the most unjust things ever done, to 
charge a man who is constantly talking with Trustees on College 
affairs, with untnistworthiness, because he cannot produce evidence by 
formal resolution of a committee which it seems meets formally but 
four or five times in a century. 

There is nothing which a self-respecting court can seriously consider 
in such charges. It is impc»ssible to found upon any such evidence or 
any such state of facts as that, a charge that Dr. Potter was inten- 
tionally untruthful. Of course, I understand that the charges are 
made against the Doctor by alleged ** Christian" Professors; but 
the aKKaKCTTi of President Grarfield pleaded pdety and conscientious 
pressote, and why should not assassins of character do the same ? 
The evidence is given, and the charges are indorsed, as is said, by 
" Christian gentlemen," who come forward and testify to his untruth- 
fulness and to his wickedness, and it was presumed that the Doctor 
was to be taken unawares and permitted no trial or defense, but was 
to be overwhelmed under this avalanche of asserted immaculate charac- 
ter which is preeii^»itated ufMjn him by these Professors. I desire to 
say — and I speak for my client as well as for myself — we are not in 
the slightest degree appaUed by the exalted pretensions of the gentle- 
men who make these charges. It is proved by this Record that they 
are as paltry a set of consj»irators as ever laid their heads together for 
the purpose of blackening and blasting the go«>i name of an innocent 
man. 

Take this next specification. It is a falsehood upon its face — a 
mean, paltry and malicious falsehood; for, as it was meant to be 
understood, it makes a grave charge which is entirely contrary to the 
facts, as those gentlemen knew them to be when they deliberately 
drew up this specification, with the aid of counsel, and had it printed, 
and corrected the proof-sheets and brought it forward to the notice of 
the Trustees, as follows : 

" Specification 7. The President is untrustworthy in this ; that at 
some time between December 22, 1880, and the 2<Jth of January, 1S81, 
he changed the original minutes of the Faculty meeting of Decemt»er 



10 

22, 1880, by interpolating and erasing certain words, so as to entirely 
change the meaning of the sentences in which such charges were 
made, and afterwards . labored for ihe adoption of the minutes so 
changed, at subsequent Faculty meetings ; at the same time admitting 
that he had made such change and insisting on his right to do so." 

What would a rational man understand by reading that specifica- 
tion ? I know what I understand ; I know what Gov. Hoffman under- 
stood, as I judged by his question to Prof. Price when on the stand. 
The charge is substantially as every reader would understand it, that 
certain minutes having been taken of the proceedings of a certain Fac- 
ulty meeting, the President went secretly and changed those minutes 
by interpolating and erasing certain words, so as to change entirely 
their original meaning ; and that at a subsequent Faculty meeting he 
attempted to have those minutes adopted, upon the ground that they 
were passed originally in the same sense and with the same words as 
those which appeared after he had altered them; that is, that he 
secretly altered them and then attempted to make the Faculty believe 
that they had passed them with the alteration. That is the fair mean- 
ing of it, and what everybody would understand by it. " At the 
same time admitting that he had made such change." That is to say, 
after he was charged at the Faculty meeting with having made the 
change, having first claimed the minutes were passed as he had altered 
them, he admitted the fact, but claimed his right to do so. As any- 
body would read it, as it was placed before this Board, and published 
in the public prints of the country, it was a falsehood upon its face, 
and not at all in accordance with the facts as the malcontents knew the 
facts were, and as they were proved here before this Board. Moreover 
it wad not an innocent falsehood. Dr. Potter, if he has not told the 
truth, is the most amiable falsifier in the world, because his worst enemy 
could not say that any of these specified falsehoods were intended to 
benefit himself or injure anybody else while evidently his statements 
were open and frank and with no purpose to deceive. In this case it 
is perfectly clear that he merely suggested in pencil with his initials 
an amendment to the minutes previous to their discussion and adoption 
at a coming meeting, from which he might be absent. This is evident 
from the evidence fully considered in the Statement of Facts. 

I might have referred before specification seven to specification six, 
but in reality I am now taking them up in the natural order. 

" The President was untrustworthy in this : in that he stated to dif- 
ferent members of the Faculty on or about the day of October, 
1881, that he would change the minutes of any organization to which 
he belonged if they hampered his action, and that he referred in such 
statement to the minutes of the Faculty and Trustees of the College." 
It is generally considered sufiicient to try people for the offenses which 



11 

they ha^ve committed, and not for things which, under some excitement, 
they say they will do, whenever they get a good chance. Even treason, 
in this country, has got to be committed by some overt act. You can- 
not say you will levy war against the United States and be tried for 
' the offense, unless you do it. It seems that the way in which President 
Potter said this, was, that some members of the Faculty came to him 
and got up a controversy with him ; they said to him, at such a time 
you altered the minutes of our ' Faculty meeting, and the President 
answered that he had not altered the minutes of any Faculty meeting. 
He had made a certain suggestion of an amendment upon certain 
rough pencil minutes which had never been adopted ; and upon the 
charge being pressed against him, he undoubtedly exclaimed, " Well, 
if you call that altering the minutes, I will alter the minutes of any 
organization with which I am connected." And that is all there is of 
it; and having drawn him into a controversy, having provoked him to 
make a hasty remark of that character, they bring him up here and 
try him and attempt to remove him for making the remark, as though 
it was really a serious offense. It is impossible for anybody to expend 
a great amount of time upon a charge of untrustworthiness, founded 
upon any such occurrence as that. 

The eighth specification is that the President was untrustworthy, in 
this, " that he caused to be inserted in the Book of Minutes of the Cor- 
poration certain statements as to donations, thereby impairing the 
integrity of the bpok." The President thought that the college should 
possess a permanent record of the donations he procured for it, so 
entered that they could not escape the attention and inspection of the 
Trustees. The Board had consented to his going to Europe and he 
wanted in that connection to place this record where it would be easily 
accessible to the Trustees. Therefore he directed it to be put as a 
separate and distinct entry in their Book of Minutes. The charge in- 
geniously states (since the whole matter was perfectly open and without 
concealment and evidently did not impair, or profess to be, any minute 
of the Trustees) that by directing this entry to be made he impaired the 
integrity of that book. Merely charging against a man that he made 
an entry in any kind of book, without characterizing it in any other way, 
I suppose is not a charge of a serious offense. It is not pretended that 
there is anything improper or untruthful in it, but simply that the 
entry is misplaced. If the Trustees had provided a book for the pur- 
pose and the President had made those entries therein, it would have 
been unquestionably proper, and any way I do not see what these pro- 
fessors have to do with it. It is the most extraordinary thing to my 
mind about this extraordinary case that such prominence should have 
been given to this particular act of President Potter, unless there were 
persons bent, by fair means or foul, on securing his overthrow and on 



12 

preventing the truth being recorded. No President or benefactor, it 
seems, can really help Union College without courage to face abusive 
epithets and misleading charges, such as the inefficient or the envious 
or the sinecurist promulgate with ease and apparent impunity. Is it 
because this record nails to the counter lies which have been circulated 
that these complainants cannot tolerate its presence, and because in 
the President's printed reports he has protested against the excessive 
cost of the treasury department, the defects and evils of financial 
management and unintelligible and misleading a,nnual reports? 

For his needed record the President supposed he had tacit consent ; 
doubtless he could thereafter, had he deemed it necessary, have secured 
by resolution formal consent. The act is not immoral or wrong in any 
sense. If the Trustees had happened formally, by resolution, to make 
provision for it, the most captious critic could not have questioned it- 
How does the record impair the integrity of the Book or the Minutes ? 
It does not impair them half as much as the charge impairs the integ- 
rity of the English language. Calumniators called upon by this Board 
to specify offenses are thrown upon the defensive and are forced to make 
mountains out of mole-hills by piling up multitudinous specifications 
only fit for old wives' fables. 

My friend took the trouble to prove on his cross-examination of 
Dr. Potter that the words to which I am about to refer relate to an 
authorized transfer of certain funds. In the College Record also will 
be found further information upon this subject, as follows : " Includ- 
ing the land credit of $250,000, added to the general fund by the 
President." I don't know what particular point my friend thinks can 
•be made upon that. The words, " including the land credit of $250,- 
000," certainly apply to the restricted fund which was formerly owned 
by the college, but which could not go into the general fund, and of 
which the transfer was procured by the President. Certainly nobody 
would suppose from that entry that the President had paid $250,000 
into the general fund of the college out of his own pocket. This fact 
is clear from the subsequent clause at folio 176 : " If gifts, not in 
money, and if the land credit suggested and secured by the President 
to the general fund be included, this brief covers a total of some six or 
seven hundred thousand dollars at least, with bequests yet to fall due.'* 
I don't think any fair man w^ould object to or misunderstand that state- 
ment. The items were important and the record truthful, and Dr. 
Potter was right in directing them to be recorded somewhere. He can 
very properly admit that he may have erred in judgment in directing 
the record to be made in this book instead of in some other book. 
Openly, and after consultation with secretaries and trustees, this entry 
was made, subject to the approval of the Board, and I do not see why 
he could have had any reason to suppose that any one would make 
strenuous objections. 



13 

In concluding the consideration of this eighth specification, however, 
the facts in evidence show that the President knew of false reports as 
to endowments, injurious not only to him but to the College and the 
University. This made it incumbent on him to see that parties put in 
writing their knowledge of facts relating to donations and to make the 
record, no matter (as in the case of the action of the Trustees of the Dud- 
ley Observatory, and the statement of its treasurer) how creditable to 
the President. The correspondence connected with the record shows, 
that while other trustees may have been consulted by Hon. R. M. 
Blatchford and Mr. James Brown, it was through the President that 
they were led to aid the College largely, even though previous to 
his administration they abandoned the purpose of doing so. False 
reports made it necessary for the President to state the facts. The great 
Apostle to the Gentiles said, modestly, " I am not meet to be called an 
Apostle." Yet when facts were misrepresented, he recorded the truth, 
and if he exclaimed of his traducers " I am in labors and services more 
abundant," who blames him ? The entry which, under pain of 
being blamed for leaving the Board without a permanent record, the 
President caused to be made, refers to the principal improvements and 
gifts and bequests in their order as shown in the Decennial Review 
presented to the corporation. 

When the Board adjourned yesterday we were considering the 
eighth, and I proceed now [September 6th], with specification ninth. 
" The President was untrustworthy in this : That he caused to be in- 
serted in the college catalogue and to be published and circulated 
under the apparent authority of the College, a statement to the eff'ect 
that the Rt Hon. W. E. Gladstone had accepted the position of Chan- 
cellor of Union Unt^^^rsity; whereas in truth and in fact the said 
Gladstone had declined such position, which declination the President 
well knew." 

I confess I fail to see or appreciate the grounds of this charge against 
the President by the malcontents of this College. I suppose the question 
as to whether Mr. Gladstone was or was not properly set down in the 
list of the Chancellors of Union University would be a question rather 
for the governors of the University than for the Trustees of the Col- 
lege. But if this matter is to be taken up and considered here, I 
desire to say this, that I do not entirely concur in the President's 
courtesy and course in this matter. I know the character of the jury I 
am addressing ; they are all able and acute men, and if I should say 
anything I did not believe, they would very likely find me out and 
then they would not believe anything I said after that. I am desirous 
of avoiding that catastrophe. In this matter I do not think the con- 
duct of the President was exactly what mine would have been. 



14 

I am free to say I would not take half the trouble that President 
Potter did to connect the name of any haughty Briton, no matter 
how distinguished, with the name of any American institution, no 
matter how insignificant. I used to teach a district school in 
Washington county when I was a boy, and if, by turning my hand 
over, I could have prevailed upon Queen Victoria to become an 
Honorary Chancellor of that institution, I do not think I would have 
done it. It would not have added a cent to my slender w^ages nor an 
additional letter to the acquirements of any scholar. But different 
men look upon things in different ways, and I have no doubt that 
President Potter in this matter regarded Union University as outrank- 
ing a preparatory academy, and hoped to further the interests of what 
he at least regards as potentially, if not actually, a great institution. It 
seems he was dining in New York with a distinguished Englishman, 
and whether he eats or drinks he has an eye to the glory of Union Col- 
lege ; and it having been suggested that Mr. Gladstone might consent 
to be Honorary Chancellor of Union University, the gentleman with 
whom he was conversing offered to further the plan. It seems that 
the President distrusted an invitation by letter merely, and said to the 
Right Hon. Mr. Foster, with whom he was conversing, " Although at 
this late date he will probably decline for 1875, his name will be 
retained for a later year and without requiring attendance unless we 
learn after your consulting with him personally that he objects." In 
the evidence is the letter from Mr. Gladstone, in which he regrets his 
inability to accept the invitation for 1875 ; not apparently disliking the 
position of Honorary Chancellor, but declaring he cannot attempt to 
cross the water in order to deliver his Chancellor's speech. He does 
not show any particular dislike to accepting the position, but says '* he 
must make over to other, to younger and to less occupied men, the hope 
of crossing the Atlantic." He was first appointed Chancellor in 1875. 
As it was found that he could not then attend, a substitute, who alluded 
to the fact in his printed address, was found to supply his place. For 
the year 1876 there was no Chancellor's address, and the year was left 
blank in the catalogue. President Potter having conferred upon him, 
by the resolution of the governors, the right to designate the Chancel- 
lors, after waiting and perceiving that Mr. Gladstone would never in 
all probability be able to attend in person, had his name placed in 
the catalogue as Chancellor for 1876, the year left blank because no 
other Chancellor's address was then delivered, and in which the 
Chancellor's coming was hoped for. And he caused to be written 
to him and signed, that letter which states the fact and is in 
evidence. It is a slightly more courteous letter than I, with my 
revolutionary ancestry, would desire to write to any countryman 



15 

of Cornwallis and j^Burgoyne, but Dr. Potter does use this lan- 
guage : " Although you could not be with us in person, we re- 
tained your name in the roll of Honorary Chancellors." Mr. Glad- 
stone answered through his private secretary, that he acknowledged 
the receipt of the letter and that he was glad to have another oppor- 
tunity of assuring Union University how heartily he wished success to 
it. Certainly, there is nothing in this letter which intimates in the 
slightest degree that Mr. Grladstone objected to having his name kept 
on the roll of the Chancellors of the University. The testimony goes 
further. Dr. Nevin, visiting Mr. Grladstone, conversed with him in 
regard to this matter. He says, Mr. Gladstone stated to him that he 
was connected with an institution in America, Union University, as 
Honorary Chancellor, and that Mr. Gladstone expressed himself 
pleased with such a connection. I submit that since Mr. Glad- 
stone knew the fact that his name was on the roll of Honorary 
Chancellors of this institution (it being simply a complimentary posi- 
tion, having no duties, no emoluments, held by a succession of dis- 
tinguished Americans as well as by this highly distinguished English- 
man), I desire to submit to you that as the Rt Hon. Mr. Gladstone 
does not object, I do not see why anybody on earth should object. He 
stated the fact that he was pleased wdth the honor and appreciated it. 
President Potter has been among other duties engaged in making 
strong friends for Union University ; raising its Institutions in public 
repute and adding to their means of usefulness. Adjoining this 
new and beautiful Alumni and Memorial Hall and Art Gallery in 
which we are assembled, you see rising a large fire-proof build- 
ing for the library and kindred purposes. It is a memorial of 
Dr. Washburn and Mr. Thomas H. Powers, gentlemen with even a 
slighter link to connect them and their friends with Union College 
than that with which the President, before his anticipated visit to 
England, connected Mr, Gladstone with Union University. And thus, 
on the other hand, if the College can obtain an additional dollar, an 
additional student, or an additional grain of credit in the mind of any 
human being, because Mr. Gladstone is on the roll of Honorary Chan- 
cellors of Union University, of w^hich Union College forms a part, why, 
let Mr. Gladstone's name remain on that roll until the end of time, 
and let us have peace. Peace and prosperity is what Union College 
needs ; peace within her walls and prosperity in her palaces, ample 
revenues, and crowds of students thronging her gates and filling her 
courts with praise. And in order to get them, these Professors must 
attend to their legitimate business and stop making rows about 
nothing. 

The next specification, number 10, seems to set forth one of those 
differences between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, in which the hearts 



16 

of these gentlemen who make charges against President Potter delight. 
The term Faculty is used at Union College and elsewhere (and often 
when there has been no formal Faculty action), to express the convic- 
tion of the body and its members and the action of its representative 
head. If this is a loose use of the term, these Professors are far more 
guilty than the President. In the matter of these charges against the 
President, there has never been formal Faculty action ; the charges 
are preferred by " certain members " of the Faculty, yet Prof. Staley 
officially indorsed them as charges made by "the Faculty ;" and these 
Professors and their counsel use the term time and again in this way. 
They may intend to deceive the public by this misleading use of the 
word in this controversy, wherein it is so important a term ; but the 
President used it, as the evidence shows, in this ordinary case of dis- 
cipline in the way in which all men .often use it. The evidence is 
reviewed in full in the Statement of Facts, and all doubt is cleared up 
by the letter which the Professors supposed was lost, but a copy of 
which, made by his secretary at that time, the President had pre- 
served and was fortunately able to produce. The letter and evidence 
entirely fail to support, and completely disprove, the 10th specification. 
The eleventh specification relates to a brief conversation which took 
place in 1875, seven years ago, and the whole question turns on 
whether Dr. Potter said to Professor Perkins that Professor Wells had 
objected to the location of a gas-tank in his garden, or that he mighf; 
object, or that it was "objectionable" to him. The circumstances 
were these : It seems that there had been a discussion, as Dr. Potter 
says and as Professor Wells does not deny, upon the general subject of 
introducing gas-tanks into the grounds for the purpose of supplying 
the college with gas. He says he had a conversation with Professor 
Wells, in which Professor Wells intimated, rather by an expressive 
gesture than by words, that ^the presence of a gas-tank so near his 
house would be objectionable by its smell ; that he afterwards found 
that they were placing the gas-tank in a location near Professor Wells' 
house, and he stopped them ; and upon being asked by Professor Per- 
kins why he stopped them, he says he remarked that it would be 
objectionable to Professor Wells. There is no denial that Professor 
Wells did intimate to the President that a gas-tank near one's house 
would be objectionable on account of the smell, and if he said to Pro- 
fessor Perkins, " Professor Wells objects to a gas-tank so near his 
house," the statement would have been substantially true, as referring 
to the former conversation, which nobody denies took place. I respect- 
fully submit that it would be unjust and unfair in the last degree to 
charge any man with intentional untruthfulness, because he thus 
understood Prof. Wells' gesture or upon the ground that another 
man speaking after a lapse of seven years and remembering nothing 



17 

of the conversation but one or two words, has got a particular ex- 
pression exactly as it was then used. It appears perfectly plain that 
Professor Perkins, as the author of this charge, is entirely wrong, as 
shown by his own testimony relating to the charge. For, this specifi- 
cation eleventh, written by Professor Perkins, charges that the Presi- 
dent said also the curators " objected to the location." When Profes- 
sor Perkins is called upon to substantiate that part of the charge, he 
does not substantiate it at all. He says he does not remember whether 
President Potter said the curators had objected, or they might object. 
Yet this man spreads all over the country a specification in which he 
charges that President Potter was untruthful in saying the curators 
had objected ; when on the stand he says he does not remember whether 
the language was that the curators had objected or might object. If 
he was mistaken about that after the lapse of seven years, is it not 
clear that he may be mistaken as to whether the President said the 
location was objectionable to Professor Wells or said Professor Wells 
objected ? The fact that he spoke to the professor does not tend in the 
slightest degree, to show what President Potter's language was. 
Upon cross-examination he said he "could not possibly be mistaken." 
Suppose we should get up a charge of untruthfulness against Piofessor 
Perkins, and allege that upon a particular day, upon being asked 
about a conversation which took place seven years before and of which 
he did not pretend to remember but four or live words, he stated that 
in regard to oue word of those four or five words that he could not 
possibly be mistaken, whereas, in truth and in fact, it is possible for 
anybody to be mistaken, even a college professor ; could he escape con- 
demnation, if such a charge should be made against him ? Had Presi- 
dent Potter in some hurried discussion even of a recent date and not a 
seven-year-old one, said, " Gentlemen, I recollect what I say, and I 
cannot possibly be mistaken as to what I said," what shocked Professors 
they would have been ! First, they would have thrust their tongues 
in their cheeks, slyly winking at one another, and next, in some public 
place, they would have knelt down in a row and pharisaically wept 
over President Potter's lost and ruined condition ; and finally they 
would have engaged counsel and got up this and the rest of these 
specifications and charges. 

Specification twelve is, " The President was untrustworthy in this : 
that on or about the day of , 187 , he stated to Professor 

Perkins that he had called the attention of the Board of Trustees to 
the extra work which had been done by Professor Perkins for Profes- 
sor Foster, who had been sick, and their gratification therewith; 
whereas, in truth and in fact, he had made no mention of the matter 
to the board." 

The facts as to this charge are, that Professor Foster was sick and 

2" 



18 

that Professor Perkins having done some little work for him (though 
there is no evidence to show that Professor Foster did not regard it as 
poorly done), desired to have it mentioned in the board. The meet- 
ing was eight years ago, and no one recollected when the charge was 
made, the day or the month or the year that the meeting was held, 
except President Potter, who placed it in 1874. 

President Potter says that he recollects the circumstance, and 
although after the lapse of eight years he cannot recollect with cer- 
tainty the exact details of the affair, yet he recollects mentioning it to 
the Board, and recollects some of the gentlemen there as expressing 
themselves pleased with the action of Professor Perkins. 

The opposing testimony is extremely vague and amounts to nothing. 

Two members of a Board which might have consisted of twenty- 
five and must have consisted of seven, testify simply that they have no 
recollection that a certain statement was made in a meeting which 
took place eight years ago, but both say very carefully and properly 
that they will not undertake to say that President Potter did not make 
such a statement in the Board ; and the rest of the seven or fourteen 
or eighteen or whatever the number of Trustees then present, testify 
nothing about it. Therefore the case stands here, that Dr. Potter says 
he recollects that he did make such a statement, and nobody recollects 
that he did not. 

I would like to put a question here that has suggested itself to my 
mind more than once in this case. For instance, is Professor Perkins 
a man of accurate recollection and speech and not a universal detractor; 
and if so, if he felt any doubt that President Potter had made this 
statement, why did not he at the time go to President Potter and say, 
" In what language did you make that statement? What gentlemen 
were they that expressed their gratification at what I had done ? " 
President Potter would either have been compelled to admit he had 
not mentioned it, or else he would have told him what he did say and 
the names of the gentlemen who expressed their gratification. Instead 
of that. Professor Perkins took this mare's egg, which was laid eight 
years ago, and has been setting on it ever since, trying to hatch out a 
falsehood. He has made a poor job of it, and had better give over the 
business of hatching to animals who are better provided with feathers, 
and devote himself to building up his professional reputation and the 
important College Department which the Corporation was induced to 
commit to him. 

Specification thirteen says : " The President was untruthful in this : 
That at a meeting of the Faculty held February eighth, 1879, he stated 
that he had not been consulted in relation to the curriculum of studies 
prepared by a Committee of the Faculty of which Committee he was one, 
to be presented to a Committee of the Board of Trustees of which he. 



19 

the President was a member ; whereas, in truth and in fact, he had 
been frequently consulted in relation thereto by the Committee." As 
you see by the Statement of Facts, the proof was that he never was 
consulted by the Committee at all. At a Faculty meeting at which the 
evidence is that there was considerable controversy between the mal- 
content Professors and the President, the President said that he had 
not been consulted by the Committee. He meant, as a matter of 
course, that he had not been fully and finally consulted as to the entire 
schedule by the Committee as such. He meant that he had not been 
consulted by the Committee as a Committee ; and that the curriculum, 
as a whole, had not been placed before him for his final approbation. 
There is not a particle of doubt that they thus understood him. They 
could not suppose that he or any other rational man, with the men 
standing before him, two or three of whom had informally talked with 
him about the curriculum, would deny that fact. They deliberately 
misrepresented the fact and proposed to save it up to his injury, and 
for some sort of a specification. And that kind of action on the part 
of these Professors characterizes all the charges and specifications 
against President Potter. They may be more or less versed in the 
languages and in inathematics. If they spoke wdth the tongues of 
men and angels, if they had the gift of prophecy and understood all 
mysteries, yet we have the highest authority for saying that, without 
a quality in which they are wanting, all these things are as nothing. 
The malcontents of Union College, it seems to me, are sadly lacking 
in " the charity which thinketh no evil." 

The fourteenth specification charges : " The President was untruth- 
ful in this : That on or about the 22d of June, 1882, he stated that the 
correspondent of the New York Sun had said to him that the state- 
ments made by Prof. Staley to the said correspondent were infamous ; 
whereas, in truth and in fact, the said correspondent had made no 
such statement to President Potter respecting Prof. Stnley." The fact 
is, that the correspondent of the Sun had said to the President that a 
Professor had made charges against him that were fearful or infamous. 
Staley had been talking with the Sun reporter ; and some Professor, 
who was doubtless friendly to the President, had said to the President 
that Staley was the authority of that statement to the Sun reporter ; 
and what the President said, according to Prof. Staley's testimony, is, 
" the statements made by Prof. Staley to the correspondent of the New 
York Sun were infamous." As President Potter remembers, the word 
used was "fearful." But Prof. Staley then said to the President. " I 
declined to make a statement to the Sun reporter ; " and at the same 
time, and almost in the same breath. President Potter says, "The Sun 
reporter didn't state that you said it ; he said that a Professor had 
made fearful statements against me, and another person told me that 



20 

it was you who said it." Suppose President Potter had been charged 
in the printed specification with saying to Prof. Staley that the state- 
ment made by him to the Sun reporter was infamous, and the speci- 
fication had continued as follows : " but on Prof. Staley 's denying that 
he had made such a statement, the President also added that the Sun 
reporter did not mention Professor Staley's name, but said that a Pro- 
fessor had made such a statement, while another person had informed 
him that Professor Staley was the reporter's informant," would any one 
here hold that to be a charge of untruthfulness ? A man w^ho knows 
of infamous charges . against himself and wants to find the author, 
has he not a right, if informed of the latter, to charge him with it, to 
see whether he admits it or denies it ? Suppose I go to some one and 
say to him, " I hear that you charge me with acting dishonestly in 
such a litigation ; " and he answers, " My dear fellow, I never said 
anything of the kind ; " and then I say, " My informant didn't say 
that you had said so, but from his statements I inferred that you must 
have been the. man w^ho made the charge ; " I fancy that any one who 
should thereafter charge me with wilful untruthfulness, would prove 
himself and not me to be a very dishonorable man. 

The fifteenth specification is : *' The President was untruthful in 
this, that on or about the day of , 187 , and about the 

time of laying out the new street known as Union Avenue, he stated to 
a Trustee of Union College that Prof. Staley approved of his plan for 
laying out the street east of Prof. Pearson's residence ; whereas, in 
truth and in fact. Prof. Staley did not approve of the plan and had so 
stated to the President." 

The evidence is that Prof. Staley had a conversation with the Presi- 
dent in relation to the laying out of this street, during a part of which 
Mr. Jenkins was present. Prof. Staley says that he argued in favor 
of having the street go west of Prof. Pearson's residence ; that he and 
the President difi'ered, and that at the end of their conversation Judge 
Potter came up, and that President Potter then, in the presence of 
Prof. Staley and Mr. Jenkins, stated that Prof. Staley agreed with him 
in holding that the street should go east of Prof. Pearson's residence; 
and further, that Prof. Staley and Mr. Jenkins stood there and heard 
the statement made to Judge Potter and remained entirely silent, never 
made a suggestion that President Potter was laboring under a mistake, 
and never said Prof. Staley had not agreed with President Potter ; 
while up to this summer President Potter had never heard Prof. Staley 
or any one claim that the Professor had not agreed with his view as he 
stated. 

Here again is a curious state of facts on which to make a charge of 
wdlful falsehood. If Prof. Staley did not agree with President Potter, 
if he heard his position misstated to Judge Potter, why did he not say 



21 

so at the time ? What reason was there for keeping still ? Did fie 
want to save it up for a charge and a specification against the President? 
There isn't a court on the face of the earth but would say, although a 
million of dollars had depended upon the question, that he was estopped 
from denying Dr. Potters statement and he must be held to have assent- 
ed. Suppose Prof. Staley, instead of keeping quiet, had said to Judge 
Potter, ''Certainly, I agree with the President in relation to the location 
in which the street ought to have been placed." It would have been a 
very curious thing to have brought up the President after that and 
tried him for untruthfulness. And yet that is what he did say. That 
is what any court would decide he said, and that is what any person 
with moral sense would hold that he said. He said it just as plainly 
by his silence as he could have said it in words. " Silence gives con- 
sent." One thing or the other is true ; either Prof. Staley, while Mr. 
Jenkins was absent, said something that he knew President Potter had 
a right to believe was agreeing with him on this subject, and yet deter- 
mined that later he would charge him with having misstated his posi- 
tion ; or else President Potter misunderstood what Prof. Staley had 
said. There is no middle line between these positions. Either he did 
say something that President Potter had a right to understand was 
agreeing with him, or President Potter understood him to agiee with 
him ; because it is utterly incredible that having a conversation in the 
presence of a witness wdth P^of. Staley, in which Prof. Staley dis- 
agreed with him, he should have said the next minute in the presence 
of Prof. Staley and that witness that he agreed Avith him. Why did 
not Prof. Staley say at the time, " President Potter, you misunder- 
stand me ; I didn't agree with you as to the location of this street." 
Then even so weak a man as the Professor would have found out whether 
he was mistaken or not. But keeping quiet, ten years afterwards he 
brings this up to sustain a charge of untruthfulness against the Presi- 
dent. And Mr. Jenkins, too, why should he stand there and say noth- 
ing about it and not open his lips about it since to the President 
although retailing it to others ? Why didn't he say : " If I under- 
stand Prof. Staley, you are mistaken. He did not say he agreed 
with you ; the words being short and similar in sound, probably you 
misunderstood him ; but he did not say it should go east, but west." 
Why did not either of them say so ? Be"cause they chose to keep the 
matter back. They thought that some time or another this President 
might be on trial as several of his predecessors had been, and they 
would bring it up then if they happened to be in the opposition and 
charge him with deliberate falsehood. Is it to please such people as 
these, and upon such evidence as this, that an efficient man is to be 
deprived of hife office and an honorable man of his reputation ? Why 
did the rest of those joining in this crusade say of this thing — which 



22 

must have been a misunderstanding — that it was a crime and a proof 
of untruthfulness ? Common sense would attest the contrary. They 
chose to follow their instinctive feelings of hostility to an efficient exe- 
cutive. 

The sixteenth specification is, " The President was untrustworthy in 
this : That at a meeting of the Faculty held June 20, 1877, the Presi- 
dent stated that he was ready for a resolution relative to keeping stu- 
dents who were conditioned from passing from the Junior to the Senior 
class. Such a resolution was unanimously adopted by the Faculty at 
such meeting. The President instructed the Professors to announce 
the decision to their classes, that conditioned men would not be allowed 
to pass into the Senior class ; and they did so. The President after- 
wards, without consultation with the Faculty, added to the resolution a 
modifying statement and permitted all of the Junior class, without 
exception, to pass into the Senior class." 

It is difficult for me to find what particular definition the complain- 
ants attach to their words. This specification is one of a kind that has 
generally been put under the head of incompetency, and how it can 
be held that the President is untrustworthy in making an order which 
was clearly within his power to make as to the discipline of the Col- 
lege, is one of those things I at least find it difficult to discover. The 
College laws then placed the responsibility of the government of the 
College upon him. He stated in a note that the action of the Faculty 
needed to be approved by the Trustees. His decision did no injury to 
the standing of the College, because the men could not be graduated 
unless they made up the conditions, and he recorded it where during 
his absence the Professors would be most likely to see it. The Doctor, 
upon reflection, although he concurred in the action of the Faculty in 
the first place, had finally decided that he could not properly make 
this sweeping and general change in the discipline of the college and 
in the standing of the students, without the concurrence of the Trus- 
tees. It was a matter entirely within his discretion. The responsibil- 
ity of the management of the college was upon him, and I think you 
will find he acted wisely ; or, at least, if you think that he acted in- 
judiciously, you will see that there is nothing in the matter which 
amounts to proof of untrustworthiness. 

The seventeenth specification declares, " The President was 
untrustworthy in this: That in September, 1880, he represented 
to the resident Trustees that he had the concurrence of Pro- 
fessors Staley and Price to the appointment of Mr. Lawrence to teach 
Algebra, and that of Professor Whitehorne for the same person to 
teach Latin to the Freshmen ; whereas, in truth and in fact, the said 
Professors did not concur in either of the said appointments." 

So far as the statement to the Resident Trustees is concerned, this 



23 

rests upon the testimony of Dr. Backus. Just what the President's was, 
and whether it was in writing or by a message through Judge Landon, 
or by a meeting of the Resident Trustees, Dr. Backus does not re- 
member, and there is nothing definite about the evidence. Was not 
the real difficulty, the question whether the centre of college authority 
should be with Dr. Backus down town or in the President's office ? 
Under the circumstances, were not misunderstandings about oral or 
written communications, probable ? 

Mr. Lawrence is in Europe ; we cannot have the benefit of his tes- 
timony, but that is not necessary. The College records show in contra- 
diction of the evidence of Dr. Backus, that Dr. Backus having ordered 
(by what authority is not stated) payment for services, services were 
rendered by Mr. Lawrence, who gave the College instruction such as a 
tutor usually gives and received a tutor's small pay, the President 
having secured for the College large sums available for this and other 
college purposes. 

Mr. Price admits that the President asked him about the matter 
and that he did not object. He concurred as far as he had any right 
to concur, for the matter was one for Trustees, and he told the Presi- 
dent he had not the slightest personal objection ; and the President 
felt that Professor Lawrence assisting him would aff'ord a needed relief. 

Professor Staley says simply that he did not concur and that he 
made no recommendation. What he meant by " concurring " is left 
entirely indefinite. Dr. Potter says, and you will recollect that it is 
not denied, that Professor Staley was present at this conversation 
between him and Professor Price ; that either he or Professor Price 
asked Professor Staley's opinion, and Professor Staley intimated by a 
nod that so far as he was concerned he had no objection ; that is, that 
he concurred Avith Professor Price, and neither of them denied that 
that conversation took place in the exact manner detailed by the Presi- 
dent. Thus this allegation against the President is entirely disproved. 
Secondly, if he did say that Professor Staley and Professor Price had 
no objection to Professor Lawrence assisting in algebra, he was stat- 
ing what was substantially correct. Thirdly, as to Professor White- 
home desiring Professor Lawrence to teach Latin to the Freshmen, 
the President relied upon the following letter : 

June 26, 1880. 
*'Dr. Potter : 

"Dear Sir — Professor Whitehorne asked me to take the Freshman, 
Classical and Scientific divisions in Latin next term. That will suit 
me first rate. I much prefer a regular, required study to a voluntary, 
though I am willing to undertake anything that you think wise and 
best." 



24 

Whether Professor Whitehorne agreed that Professor Lawrence would 
do w^ell to be appointed to teach Latin to the Freshmen, or whether he 
did not agree, the President had the right, from what Professor Law- 
rence had informed him, to believe and to say that Professor White- 
horne concurred as to the matter. That is all there is of 'this seven- 
teenth specification. 

Specification 18 is, "That the President was untrustworthy in this, 
that he represented to the members of the Committee on Instruction 
of the Board of Trustees that Professor Whitehorne's judgment was, 
that Professor Ashmore would be overburdened if required to take the 
Freshmen Scientific Latin, and that Professor Lawrence had done that 
work successfully before ; whereas, in truth and in fact, Professor 
Whitehorne made no such representations to the President of his judg- 
ment respecting this matter of instructing in Latin ; Professor Ash- 
more having in Faculty meeting, September, 1881, declared his entire 
willingness to take charge of all the Latin of the Latin Department." 
I desire you to understand this charge. This is not a charge that Dr. 
Potter said to the resident Trustees that Professor Whitehorne's judg- 
ment was that Professor Lawrence had done that work successfully 
before. That was the Doctor's own judgment of the work in which he 
supposed Professor Whitehorne concurred. This charge is that he 
said untruthfully that it was Professor Whitehorne's judgment that 
Professor Ashmore would be overburdened if required to take the 
Freshmen Scientific Latin. The question is whether he was justified 
in making such a statement of Professor Whitehorne's judgment as to 
the work sought to be imposed on Prof. Ashmore. Prof. Price testifies to 
Professor Whitehorne as "jolly ; " and there is danger in a habit of 
getting "jolly," lest it affect either utterance or memory. Certainly 
Prof. Whitehorne made what some of the witnesses called "humorous 
remarks." Humorous remarks are very easily misunderstood. Some- 
times it is difficult to understand how far a man means them as a joke 
and how far in earnest. Dr. Potter says he understood Professor 
Whitehorne as deprecating the idea of placing any more duties upon 
Professor Ashmore. To sustain President Potter we have the testi- 
mony of Professor Ashmore himself, and he declares, upon his honor 
as a man, and his veracity as a witness, that hearing the remarks of 
Professor Whitehorne, he understood them exactly in the same way 
President Potter did. Certainly if these malcontents of this Faculty had 
gone to President Potter and said to him quietly and pleasantly, 
"Upon what ground did you make the assertion that Professor White- 
horne thought Professor Ashmore would be overburdened wdth the 
Scientific Latin?" and he had said, " I understood by Prof. White- 
horne's remarks in the Fa!bulty meeting that he did think that Pro- 
fessor Ashmore, as a young man and .a new Professor would be over- 



25 

weighted by that study with the others, and Professor Ashmore, pres- 
ent at the same time, says he understood it the same way ; " if, after 
hearing such an explanation as they ought to have sought before 
speaking to the detriment of their President, they should charge him 
either formally or informally, with having told a falsehood, would they 
not stamp themselves, and by these proceedings have they not stamp- 
ed themselves and not their President, as dishonest and dishonorable ? 

The nineteenth specification declares, " The President is untrust- 
worthy in this : That on or about the 24th of March, 1879, he caused 
to be printed and circulated a circular letter soliciting the Alumni of 
the College to become members of an association known as the Century 
Club of Union College ; to which were appended the names of thirteen 
Alumni of the College, some of which were caused to be appended by 
the President of the College Avithout the authority of the persons pur- 
porting to have signed it." The evidence is, that the funds of the 
College running low, the President, for the purpose of paying the sala- 
ries of the Professors, devised a particular mode of raising contribu- 
tions, and, with that keen sense of gratitude which springs spontane- 
ous in the human breast where conspiracy is rife, of course the Professors, 
whose salaries he was trying to pay, make charges of evil-doing against 
him and try him for making the effort. The Statement of Facts con- 
tains the circular and you will find that the circular is signed by some 
prominent Alumni and bears a few additional names appended not by 
the President, but by gentlemen who felt at liberty to do so. It binds 
nobody ; it is a mere invitation. Professor Wells was and is employed 
and paid to raise funds (though considerately leaving that arduous duty 
to the President) and he knew the Facts as to the Century Club of which 
he was secretary. That he is not a person likely to keep anything 
very quiet, you realized in listening to his voluble testimony ; which led 
me to express relief when assured that if some other modern languages 
are entrusted to him by a too confiding assignment, he is not Profes- 
sor of the English tongue. He and others knew the facts, were satis- 
fied as to the movement and accepted its proceeds. When hunting 
for a specification, he trumped up this one. The Board and the 
Finance Committee did not hesitate to appropriate the money which 
was raised by means of this device of the Century Club. 

The President received no benefit from the funds he raised in order 
to make up Professors' salaries and to replace the scrip they were then 
being paid and also to prevent reductions otherwise inevitable. In 
spite of the wickedness of President Potter in securing this money for 
them, these Professors, now manifesting such extreme- delicacy, have 
not refused to take the money and use it. Perhaps they will now 

return it ! 

Specification twenty says, " The President was untrustworthy in 



26 

this : That he caused to be printed in the College Catalogue for 1880 
the statement that the Deans of the Departments of Union University- 
acted for him by his delegation ; whereas, in truth and in fact, they 
do not so act." 

It is calculated, I think, that there are some fifteen hundred mil- 
lions, of x^eople upon this globe ; and of these I should say 1,499,- 
999,999 had not the least possible interest in the question as to how 
the Deans of Union University act. Professor Staley stands isolated 
from the whole human race as being the only man that has ever taken 
interest enough in the question to write a charge or specification about 
it. Mr. Staley, it seems, in trying to get a twentieth specification, 
looked the catalogue over and found the statement that the Deans of 
the Departments of Union University acted for the President by his 
delegation, and Staley jumped to the conclusion that this was a state- 
ment that the President of Union College appointed the Deans of the 
University. This professor erred through ignorance of the college law 
as he did in a previous instance. The college code says that the Dean 
*' acts in place of the President in his absence, and also assists him in 
matters delegated to him by the President." The college, as the cen- 
tre of the University, is the guide of executive action unless the Presi- 
dent is otherwise directed, and there is no other direction than the 
above. 

The Code and the catalogue use substantially the same language, and 
the correspondence between them makes it perfectly clear that the 
printed statement which the President had some part in framing is 
correct and truthful. 

Specification twenty-one says, " The President was untrustworthy, 
in this : that while, by the resolution of the Trustees, the catalogue of 
the college should be prepared by the Registrar under the direction 
of the President, the catalogue is not and has not been so prepared for 
several years last past." 

The college law nowhere declares, as far as I have been able to find, 
that the Registrar is to make the catalogue. The by-law requires that 
the catalogue be made up under "the President's direction," and that 
the Professors leave statements with the Registrar for that purpose 
before December 1st. Early in that month the Registrar should pre- 
p&,re the material and present it to the President for further directions ; 
and also to the resident and Trustees ; since the President needs in 
due season to commit it to the printer. The truth of the matter is, that 
by common consent the labor ' of making up this catalogue has been 
left to Prof. LamoroQx. Mr. Jenkins has never claimed the right 
to make the catalogue. If the college law makes it his duty to pre- 
pare the catalogue under the direction of the President, then it is 
his duty to prepare the catalogue and to go to the President and 



27 

get his directions, and he has never done it. By tacit consent of 
the Trustees and everybody else — for the testimony shows that Prof. 
Lamoroux has often consulted with the Trustees about the contents of 
the catalogue — the preparation of the catalogue, under the President, 
has been given to a professor who is friendjy to the President instead 
of one inimical and who failed to call on him with the necessary infor- 
mation. If the catalogue is properly prepared it is a matter of no 
particular consequence. It seems the professors have not, to any ex- 
tent, left statements with the Registrar for this purpose. 

Both of these specifications, twenty and twenty-one, can be disposed 
of by a single legal maxim, " De minimis non curat lex ; " and this 
Board ought to be as magnanimous as the law. I cannot see why the 
two last specifications were put in, except that the malcontent Pro- 
fessors had set their hearts on having just twenty-one specifications 
under the first charge and could not think of anything else. 

I desire to make a general comment upon all these charges of un- 
truthfulness, and that is, that in no one case before bringing these 
formal charges before the Board, Avith intent to convict the President 
and to remove him from his office, in no one case have any members of 
the Faculty gone to the President and asked him for his side of the 
story. I can imagine certainly among Christian gentlemen — gentle- 
men engaged in instructing the youth of the country, than which there 
can be no more honorable occupation — I can imagine that one of them 
might say to President Potter, "Dr. Potter, I understand that on such 
an occasion you made such and such a statement, and I also under- 
stand that in that matter the facts are different ; now I don't like to 
accuse you in my own mind of intentional untruthfulness, and con- 
sidering our relations as President and Professor, I dislike still more 
to state to others that you have been guilty of intentional untruthful- 
ness; let me hear what explanation you have to give." 

Nothing of the kind was ever said. If the various specifications 
presented against the President were but " samples," they would still 
be but samples of the reprehensible spirit of these professors with whom- 
no one's character could be safe unless by the re-enactments of the 
ancient " lex talionis," slitting the slanderous tongue, male or female. 

Citizens, trustees and others have been called by them to give testi- 
mony of little moment, except as helping by a specious accumulation 
of witnesses to magnify peccadilloes into seeming importance. A pas- 
tor with a city congregation has been upon the stand, Mr. Alexander. 
Filling temporarily a college vacancy in addition to his duties to his 
flock, receiving comparatively large emoluments from the college, he 
stands in a delicate position w^hen he acts or is used in the movement 
to create a vacancy in the presidential office. These clergymen of 
denominations or theology diff"erent from that of the President, and 



28 

suspicious of him, and who are now opposing him, why did they not 
first come and speak a " wora in season" to a brother clergyman, face 
to face, instead of belittling him and befouling him behind his back 
or furthering widely published accusations ? 

These alien officers, after, gathering material for these specifications 
for yearsj promulgate this attack ; and in response to the just demand 
of the corporation, " Specify just what you mean," each one puts in one 
or more of these specifications and testifies to sustain it. He may 
know nothing of any of the other specifications, and his own specifica- 
tion may be " a trifle light as air," or a trifle lighter, like the gas speci- 
fication of M. Perkins and W. Wells, yet he signs as do the rest, the 
entire batch of them, and on such slim foundations does not hesitate 
to give the weight of his name, such as it is, to the almost countless 
specifications, and serious formulated brace of charges. Individuals 
here and there may chance to learn of this defense and the absurd 
specifications presented and the recorded evidence exonerating the 
President, but the grave, false and unproved charges supposed to come 
from a Faculty and not from a cabal like this, have been sent wher- 
ever the English language is read. By talk at the college and else- 
where, by correspondence, by conversations with trustees and others, 
while concealing them irom the President, and by suddenly placing 
them upon the pages of an ubiquitous press, they have spread their 
ex-parte misrepresentations all over the world, to ofi'end the sight and 
,wound the feelings of every right-minded man and every friend. of 
President Potter. If such conduct as this is the conduct of " Christian 
gentlemen," we will have to add a new petition to the litany ; from 
battle and murder, and from sudden death, and from ever being " Chris- 
tian gentlemen," we pray to be delivered. 

The second charge is incompetency, under which the malcontents of 
the faculty have grouped together eight specifications; and a more 
worthless lot I never came across. They prove the President incom- 
petent just exactly as much as they prove he was a lunatic — a libelous 
charge, which it seems they have not dared to print, however insidi- 
ously they may have circulated it. I am not at all sorry this charge 
was made and these specifications formulated, because I think they 
go very far to characterize the accusers and the accusations in the 
whole of this matter. 

It seems from this first specification that a large number of the 
students of the college were engaged in the raid on the old sidewalk, 
to which the specification refers. The Statement of Facts covers the 
whole ground, including the creditable letter of the President, who was 
unwell. In conformity with the suggestion of Prof. Webster, the matter 
was referred to a committee of which the professor was chairman. The 
President substantially says to Prof. Webster, " I had this information 



29 

on which I acted, from the watchman ; the watchman was mistaken in 
some respects. I was probably mistaken in some respects as to what 
the watchman said, and the watchman is not ready to swear even as 
to those he reports ; under these circumstances, I will withdraw the 
letter of probation and I will rely upon your committee to obtain 
the information attainable, for report to the next Faculty meet- 
ing." But these professors, so far as the proof is concerned, never 
asked a single question of a single student. In all probability, Prof. 
Webster said to Prof. Price, " It is not best to ask any impertinent 
questions of these young gentlemen ; we may become unpopular if we 
do so, and may get our windows broken;" the identical language used 
by Prof. Webster once to another professor. 

They never reported at the next or any other Faculty meeting, and 
the President finding that they did not act, that he could get no fur- 
ther information, that the information on which he had acted was alto- 
gether unreliable, then issued a circular to the students, declaring the 
letter of probation to be withdrawn. He did just as he said he would 
do, and now they try him for an offence, for doing what he told them 
he would do if they neglected their duty. I think this, to say the 
least, is a most extraordinary state of facts upon which to charge 
incompetency against the President. I intimated a while ago that I 
thought the malcontents Avere rather lacking in charity. I think this 
specification and the proof under it show that what they lack in 
charity they more than make up in '• cheek," which, if not so 
highly commended as the diviner quality, undoubtedly has its uses 
in this evil world. 

The second specification charges that the President is incompetent 
in that he failed to instruct or to provide suitable instruction in the 
second and third terms for the class assigned him ; "to his own dis- 
credit and the injury of the College." It is gratifying to find that 
the malcontents appreciate the Presidents ability as an instructor and 
the value of his presence at the College. The testimony in this matter 
• rests upon the evidence of Prof. Staley and Prof . Webster alone. Prof. 
Staley testifies that the President .when absent was engaged in impor- 
tant business, which goes to prove the President's competency ; and he 
adds nothing else to Professor Webster's testimony. As the records 
show no Professor so often absent as Prof. Webster, it might interest 
the Board to know how much of his time, especially of his frequent 
leave of absence on plea of sickness, is actively devoted to undermin- 
ing the head of the College. 

It seems that the President, who is not considered as a Professor 
fctnd is not bound by the College laws to take any studies, had assigned 
to him four hours a week in two terms ; and these Professors having 
selected the third term of last year for the only evidence they have 



30 

given upon this subject, it is presumed that that is the worst they 
know of and the worst they can do against him. They stand here as 
charging that it is greatly to the discredit of the President and an injury 
to the College, if the President does not personally instruct the Senior 
class four hours a week for a couple of terms. The President did not 
neglect the matter. He supplied his place with a perfectly competent 
man. Dr. Coppee, an accomplished author and professor, who says 
that the Senior class mastered the study before the term closed. The 
few hours remaining, the President proposed to devote to some pages 
omitted from Butler's Analogy. The Senior class was so near gradua- 
tion that they asked that the study should not be resumed. In view 
of the excellent character and work of the class, the President granted 
their very reasonable request, as he had a right to do. So that the 
charge amounts to this, that great discredit was brought upon the Pres- 
ident and great injury to the College because he omitted a chapter or 
two from Butler and did not personally teach a particular study which 
the class had completely mastered under Dr. Coppee. It only shows 
in what position accusers place themselves who are governed, not by 
reason, but by prejudice and passion. 

Specification third is the first of a number of specifications in which 
it appears that the President, not having the fear of these Professors 
before his eyes, and being thereto moved and instigated by some evil 
spirit, has been disrespectful to certain of them ; which, according to 
their statements, proves that he is incompetent for his position. In the 
first place, that is rather an extraordinary proposition, because I sup- 
pose it to be entirely true that a very competent man may use vigorous, 
not to say intemperate, language. Such instances as the late Dean 
Richmond, Gren. Jackson and Lord Chancellor Thurlow will readily 
occur to any one of the Trustees, as being pretty strong proof that the 
mere use of even profane language does not preclude ability and 
competency. 

Any one reading some of their specifications and not knowing the 
relation of the parties, would think that President Potter was a boy- 
about ten years old with eight step-fathers, all, by a singular coinci- 
dence, college professors ; and that his chief offense consisted in occa- 
sionally " sassing back," as the boys say, to some one of his luimerous 
and distinguished parents. True he was born under the College roof, 
and so. the malcontents hope to leave an honorable executive "without 
honor" as a true prophet has often been, " in his own country." They 
say that intemperate language and conduct prove him incompetent, 
because, "in two interviews forced upon Prof. Whitehorne by the 
President, the former's conduct in opposing him was stigmatized as 
mutinous and rebellious ; his colleagues in the Faculty and himself 
were stated to be mere pedagogues — people without refinement or 
distinction." 



31 

I don't think this a very extraordinary statement or very intempe- 
rate language. When these gentlemen again and again insisted that 
he should act under laws which he declared were not the laws of the 
college and which, as everybody now concedes, were not such ; and 
when, because he would not act under resolutions which they claimed 
and the corporation denied to be college law, they actually refused to 
support him and to exercise the authority which he gave them to main- 
tain order in the college ; I call it a perfectly temperate and truthful 
staten ent, to say that they were acting in a mutinous and rebellious 
manner ; not mutinous towards himself, not rebellious towards himself 
but rebellious to the corporation of which he and they were alike 
the servants. I think that shows nothing to support the charge 
of incompetency. But he went further; he said they were "mere 
pedagogues." He did not use the word "pedagogues" in any 
offensive sense. He says he did not, and moreover he could 
not; because the offensive sense of the word pedagogue is "a 
pedant," a man who makes a vain or boastful display of his learn- 
ing; and certainly these Professors have no public reputation for 
learning, even if they have for vain display. He simply meant they 
were teachers and nothing more ; they could instruct their classes, but 
in other respects they had not the wide reputation which would enable 
them to draw students to the college ; and even then, he says he sim- 
ply sought to convey to them the general opinion of other parties. It 
was a terrible thing for the President to say that these gentlemen 
of the Faculty were not men of wide reputation or great distinction, 
because we all know that they are and that their fame covers the 
whole world and flows ott' at the edges, so to speak, and that their 
acquirements are cited with wonder not only in the continent of Amer- 
ica, but in Europe, Asia, Africa and the isles of the sea. Men in the 
most distant lands, Parthians, Medes and Elamites, dwellers in Meso- 
potamia and Asia, all have the names of Webster, Staley, Perkins, 
Price and Wells upon their lips familiar as household words. I vow 
to Heaven that of all the comical things in this case, which has vari- 
ous comic aspects, the most intensely comic is the spectacle of these 
eight Professors sitting in a row and singing out in concert to all 
whom it may concern, " Take notice at your peril that we are all great 
men, and. anybody who fails to see it is incompetent for his office and 
ought to be removed ! " It seems a little strange that it does not at 
all affect their character and standing to use intemperate and violent 
language to or about the President. Prof. Webster could say to 
him that he had lost confidence in him because he was untruthful ; 
that does not make Prof. Webster incompetent. He could defiantly 
bring out that telling letter which the President wrote him, and seek 
to kill its effect as against himself by twisting the President's satiri- 



32 

cal or humorous expressions in the different interviews frequent in 
those troublous times. He was accustomed, if we believe his evi- 
dence, to deluge the President with offensive language ; he gave the 
President to understand that he included in his disapproval even the 
President's father and grandfather, honored officers of Union in its 
palmy days. Yet all that does not show that this eccentric profes- 
sor and specimen of natural history is untrustworthy and incom- 
petent. On the contrary, he states it upon the stand with an air 
of triumph and he is patted upon the shoulder by his seven associ- 
ates. But if President Potter happens to suggest that Harrison 
E. Webster has not so wide and favorable a reputation as Daniel 
and Noah of the same surname, that becomes an extremely wicked 
and abandoned statement, proving the President incompetent for his 
office and calling for his prompt removal. 

The President was they inform us saucy again on the 22d of June, 
1882. It seems they got that date right (about the • only one date 
they could give correctly in all the specifications) because it made 
such an impression upon a professor's sensitive nature. Dr. Potter 
actually objected to a professor's absence from town three days 
without leave. As men with heavenly compassion in your hearts 
you will be distressed to learn that the victim of this brutal re- 
mark was that same sensitive, suffering martyr. Prof. Staley, whose 
honorable wounds, received in various encounters with the Preside it 
the Professor laid bare before you. He had been absent from the 
college for three days in term time, and upon -his return he was asked 
when he wanted to leave town again to come and get the President's 
permission, as the law requires. It seems that Prof. Staley did not 
know the college law. If he had known it, possibly he would not 
have made this charge ; for the law declares that professors desiring 
to leave college in term time, must get the permission of the President 
and one trustee. When asked if it was not proper for the President 
to tell a professor that he must not leave the scene of his duty without 
permission from him, Mr. Staley wailed out, '' Why, yes ; but he 
should not have said it before a trustee." That was the iron that 
entered into Slialey's soul; the fact that the President had said it 
before a trustee. The logical argument would be this : Inasmuch as 
Staley had violated a college law it was not at all improper for the 
President to tell him in the abstract that he must not repeat the offense, 
but if Dr. Potter told him so in the presence of a trustee, then it became 
a grave offense, showing that the President was incompetent and should 
be removed from office. It is difficult to answer reasoning so conclu- 
sive, and I think I wont attempt it. The truth, however, is the great 
trouble lies in the exceedingly thin skin of Prof. Staley, w^hich causes 
every pin-prick to seem to him like a dagger-thrust. 



33 

The fourth specification presents certainly a very curious proposi- 
tion. If a member of the Board of Trustees did say that Prof. Fos- 
ter, having presented a paper to the Board, should have been kicked 
out of the room, and the President repeated the remark ; or, as the 
President recollects the occurrence, if a trustee said he wished he had 
put his foot on that paper at once or had it kicked out of the room ; 
then, as that trustee and not the President made the remark, it would 
seem better to charge that trustee with incompetency and remove hiin. 

As to the remainder of the charge, there was a factious and unrea- 
sonable opposition to the President in the college, in which the Presi- 
dent was right and the malcontents were wrong. If he said to mem- 
bers of the Faculty and believed it to be true, that he had friends on 
the Board of Trustees who would not permit this factious opposition to 
continue, was there anything very wrong or unreasonable about that ? 
They have made indecent haste since the sudden death of Trustee 
Clarkson N. Potter, and others as though obstructions to their factious- 
ness w^ere removed. Was not the President's open and prompt habit 
of speech creditable and a great deal more manly than the manner 
in which these malcontents have treated him, in keeping all these 
charges back from him for years without asking an explanation 
of him, and then exaggerating them and bringing them forward sud- 
denly in a lump ? It is a matter of common remark that he has not 
talked or gossiped ; he has praised publicly, and if he had fault to 
find he has sought the person and spoken to him frankly; and there- 
fore to say that he is incompetent seems to me exceedingly prepos- 
terous. 

Specification four — " The President is incompetent in this : That 
on or about the year 1876, and while Messrs. J. F. and W. H. Thomas 
were students in college, the President suspended them for disorderly 
conduct, but subsequent thereto, and while under such suspension, the 
said students, with their father, came to Prof. Wells and stated that 
the President had assented to their return to college on condition of 
their obtaining the consent of Prof. Wells, thereby throwing the 
responsibility of the discipline upon the Professor, while in reality, 
under the law, such responsibility rested with the President ; thereby 
exposing the individual Professor to the anger and the violence of the 
student." 

The President of this college was in an enviable position, where 
he was damned if he did consult with the Faculty and doubly 
damned if he did not. This charge is that he consulted one of the 
members of the Faculty in regard to a particular breach of discipline. 
This is the only specification, I think, which is particularly and specifi- 
cally fathered by Prof. Wells. Prof. Wells testifying in the Gladstone 
matter said in his voluble way that the President desired copies of the 
3 



34 

Gladstone letter to be sent all over the whole land, " from Maine to 
California and from the Lakes to the Grulf." I confess that alarmed 
me somewhat, because, I said, if the President is in the habit of using 
such language as that without any more provocation, the Trustees 
would be glad to get rid of him on any pretext. So, on cross-examina- 
tion I attempted to discover whether that was the President's language 
or the Professor's language ; and the Professor admitted that the Pres- 
ident did not say it, but it was his own plain, modest and unassuming 
way of saying that the President desired the letter to be sent to a 
large number of newspapers. 

In order to charge President Potter with anything particularly 
wrong in receiving again these prodigals repentant and return- 
ing, the Professor must have presumed the President to know 
several things which were not in proof. He must have known 
that it is the irresistible habit of undergraduates to treat any Pro- 
fessor with violence who objects to the return of a suspended student 
to college. He must also have known that the students were likely to 
do it in this case ; also that Professor Wells would not express his true 
opinion because he was afraid of them, afraid to deal humanely by 
students and parents, supposing that Union College men would act like 
naughty school boys and break his windows. 

There is no proof that the President believed any of these things, and 
especially of a professor who can talk magniloquently like Prof. Wells. 
The truth of the matter is, that the President had determined to let these 
young gentlemen return to the institution. He had no suspicion of Prof. 
Wells' objection. A mother pleads as only a mother can ; a father 
came with his two boys who had been guilty of some misbehavior and 
apologized for it, and they promised to do better and asked to have the 
suspension relieved. I should think that this Professor or any other 
member of the Faculty would be too good-hearted to make objection. 
It probably never entered the head of grand old President Nott that the 
time would ever come when any Professor of Union College would not 
co-operate joyfully in such a case. And permit me to remark in passing, 
of these two Presidents, grandson and grandfather, that the " shadow 
of a great name " is an expression showing how weighted an able man 
may be by an inheritance so distinguished, and how his virtues and 
achievements may be dwarfed by comparison in the light which distance 
lends. This specification has been relied upon as one of the gravest 
things against the President, but what does it amount io but to show 
the pusillanimity of timid professors, and the consideration of the 
President for all parties, since, as a matter of discipline, he sent the 
applicants to apologize to the professor most concerned. I think the 
President's course not only proper but praiseworthy. The charge of 
incompetency here is simply ridiculous. These are the words of an 



35 

advocate, it is true, but I think they are the words of truth and sober- 
ness. 

There is no charge of anything wrong in this next specification. 
Specification fifth does not say that the President was absent from 
meetings without cause or that he was able to be present. It shows 
that these Professors were determined not to be satisfied. They had 
been fighting for years to obtain the right to control the discipline of 
the College independently of the President. They obtained that 
right under the new Code, and then they insist that the President 
shall be omnipresent and they bring charges against him because he 
did not interfere with their independent action. If his absence from 
three Faculty meetings shows incompetency, then I suppose his attend- 
ance at three others would show competency. The truth of the matter 
is, that, as he says, this hostile feeling existed toward him on the part 
of some of the members of the Faculty. He thought it was sufiicient 
to say to them, that he would sustain them in whatever action they 
took. Further, it is evident that there is no kind of relevancy between 
the specilication and the charge. 

I will consider the sixth and seventh specifications together because 
they relate to the same matter ; " That the President is incompetent 
in this : That for several years last past he has repeatedly caused dis- 
order and confusion at Chapel service by entering Chapel late and out 
of breath ; that on one occasion he was so far exhausted that he called 
upon one of the Professors to conduct the service for him ; that when 
his attention was called by several of the Professors to the disorder 
thus created, he replied, I will come when I please.' 

" That the President is incompetent in this : That for several years 
last past, and continuously up to the time of the adoption of the new 
Code, he failed to preserve order and decorum during Chapel service ; 
that his attention having been called to such disorder by members of 
the Faculty, he refused ar^d neglected to exercise the power to disci- 
pline vested in him alone." 

"The power to discipline vested in him alone," brings up the ques- 
tion of law disputed betw^een the Faculty and the President. I, as his 
counsel, deny that the power to discipline was vested in him alone, in 
the sense that he could not delegate it, whenever he pleased, to mem- 
bers of the Faculty. As a matter of course he could. I suppose it is 
useless for a mere lawyer to deny in the face of eight College Profes- 
sors that getting out of breath twelve times in ten years — I believe 
that is what the proof shows — makes a man incompetent for his office. 
If it was anybody but College Professors, or any less than eight, say 
seven, or seven and a half, I should not only pronounce the proposition 
radically unsound, but I should say it was a trifle idiotic. The truth 
is, that all this trouble arose from the obstinacy of malcontent members 



36 

of the Faculty in regard to these College disorders. They say that 
President Potter came into the Chapel late. That depends upon what 
you call late. He thought it proper for the President (every moment 
of whose time was occupied) or officiating Professor to enter the Chapel 
and go to the sacred desk when the students were seated, and that 
he could not read and pray devoutly and at the same time give attention 
to order and absences and other monitorial duties. 

The malcontent monitors did not repress disorder when it occurred 
(which Prof. Wells testifies was chiefly in the President's absence), 
because they were determined to stick to the theory that so long as the 
resolutions of the board, which formed the laws of the college, failed 
to give them such rights of independent action as they demanded, 
they had no duties as to order or discipline at all. I have already 
referred you to the Akin laws of 1871, which declared that while 
the chief direction belongs to the President, the professors should 
assist in the government of the college under his authority. Prof. 
Price, whose contradictory testimony and epigrammatic efforts dis- 
close a narrow but bitter and prejudiced spirit, said that he told the 
President that he could not, as monitor, undertake to check any dis- 
order in chapel. I would like to ask him why. It was either an act of 
disorder, or it was not. If it was an act of disorder, why shouldn't it 
be repressed like any other similar act ? If it was not an act of disorder, 
why are they trying the President on a charge of permitting it, 
when they neglected their manifest duty as to its repression ? 

I asked Prof. 8taley on cross-examination if the President did not 
claim that it was the duty of the professors to administer discipline 
under him and by his authority, and if the faculty did not refuse to 
do it. He said that was so in regard to himself, and so far as he 
knew, it was so in regard to the others. The truth is that this was a 
deliberate plot, on the part of these professors, to permit and encour- 
age disorder in college, and then, if the disorder became notorious or 
intolerable, to make charges against the President as though the fault 
was his and so to put him on the defensive before the board. I call 
your attention to the following testimony from one of the faculty : — 

" Do you remember some disorder in the chapel when you were 
officiating and you stopped the disorder ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. " Did you have a conversation with Prof. Webster in relation to 
that matter ? A. He had with me. 

Q. "What did he say to you ? A. He advised me not to again try to 
maintain order and repeat what I did upon that occasion ; that I 

would get my windows broken ; that the boys would set ^pon me and 
would not stand it." ^ 

That is what one of these accusing angels said to a professor who 
was trying to do his duty and stop the disorder in chapel. " Oh no, 



37 

Brother Lamoroux, this wont do; these high-spirited and high-strung 
young gentlemen wont stand any interference with their amusements ; 
you will get your windows broken. Be quiet, let the disorder go on, 
pat the students on the back and tell them they can do what they 
please in the college, and before long the disorder will be so great it 
will make a scandal and we can make charges against the President 
and try him for it." He didn't say the last of these words to Prof. 
Lamoroux, because he is a friend of the doctor's, but substantially 
such as this was evidently his teaching to others. The evidence shows 
that these prosecutors or persecutors ought to be on trial, and not 
the President. 

Specification eight declares " That the President is incompetent in 
this : That in the exercise of the discretion vested in him, as the dis- 
penser of the beneficiary funds to indigent students, he has so improvi- 
dently distributed the same that the paying students are about one- 
third of the entire number and thereby unnecessarily largely reduc- 
ing the income of the college." 

This charge is a self-^contradiction upon its face. There is no such 
thing as wrongfully using a discretion vested in an agent by*the prin- 
cipal. There is such a thing as an abuse of judicial discretion ; but 
there is no abuse, and no such thing as abuse, in the use of a discre- 
tion vested in an agent by a "principal, because the agent has a right 
to act up to the full extent of the discretion. I lay this down as a 
proposition of law, an(l if the discretion is too wide it is the fault of 
the principal and not the fault of the agent. In addition to that, the 
charge is entirely unproven. The poisoned sting of it is the false 
assertion that he largely and unnecessarily reduced the income of the 
college. In truth and in fact, as the evidence shows, he did not 
decrease but has largely increased the income of the college by increas- 
ing the number of scholarships and students. The comparative state- 
ment in evidence shows an increase of annual income from students 
during the President's administration, in round numbers, from $5,000, 
May, 1872, to $8,000, May, 1882. 

These Professors already have unnecessarily and largely decreased, 
and if their movement is unchecked will still further decrease, the 
college income from students as well as the progress of its needed en- 
dowment. But its income from students despite the course of these 
Professors has never fallen in this administration as low as it was 
in 1872. The only decrease was from 1878 to 1881. Examine the 
catalogues from 1877 to 1881, and you see the unprecedented number 
of students dropped out of college after entrance and before gradua- 
tion, a loss attributable to these Professors who were enforcing such 
stringent treatment of students that the reports of 1879, for instance, 
show 84 students dropped out from the three upper classes alone — 



38 

a number within one of the total in college in 1872 — and (as the 
tables indicate) the larger proportion of them being payiilg students. 
These self-indulgent Professors, whatever aid they may themselves 
have received when students and may desire as Professors, objecting 
now to " charity boys," as they seem to regard them, and by their 
policy having also driven away paying students, seek to shield them- 
selves by blaming the President. They object to a full college, doubt- 
less because the fewer the students the less labor and responsibility 
for complaining Professors. 

The truth is, that having circulated far and wide rumors of finan- 
cial untrustworthiness and incompetency, and finding in the light of 
the President's Decennial Report nothing left which they could specify 
or misrepresent as heretofore, and some official 8hylock having suggested 
that a little money might be screwed from poor boys, even though it 
took their life-blood and destroyed their health and prospects, this 
penny-wise and pound-foolish suggestion was caught at and framed 
into a specification. Why not allege against the President his liber- 
ality to Professors, students and the college, which the records prove, 
and find some blunder in book-keeping or cite something superfluous 
which has added to their enjoyment and benefit, and then vamp up 
another financial specification ? It is an ingenious plot to hold the 
President responsible for everything; blame him for everybody's 
blunders, as well as for having himself exercised the discretion " vested 
in him alone." But as the college Records show, the President un- 
derstands his business and minds it. He has not diminished, but has 
iwcreasec? the college income " largely," and indeed "necessarily," by 
his policy in securing new scholarship funds and dispensing bene- 
factions to indigent students so as to improve the condition and repu- 
tation of the College for scholarship and numbers. 

Whether the Corporation has " unnecessarily and greatly decreased 
the income " from students by permitting grants of free tuition, is a 
question that these Professors are probably asking in their hearts but 
dare not confront the Board with. The responsibility is the Board's, 
and I will answer from the point of view of every efficient executive, 
that the Corporation was wise to secure a fund of fifty thousand dol- 
lars and to encourage further gifts.by granting to scholarship students 
a measure of free tuition and by interpreting that measure generously. 
Your records show that scholarship students are an exceptionally excel- 
lent class of men and add little or nothing to the cost of maintaining 
the College and these complaining Professors. Why has public and 
private munificence endowed Union College ? Are these Professors 
right in speaking of the Corporation as though a money-making con- 
cern for the benefit of some favored individuals jealous of what goes 
to aid students ? Why did the Registrar, whose antagonism to the 



39 

Executive is confirmed in his evidence, omit and conceal the last and 
most important year of receipts ? Why did he neglect to furnish the 
Trustees with a statement of the amount for which new scholarships 
and old required the Corporation to provide student aid ? Why did he 
not explain that most of what seems to be money grants to stu- 
dents is '' figurative " literally ; that the student gets only a credit rep- 
resenting some fraction of free tuition ; that when you increase the 
term-bill for paying students (as has been done at Union time and 
again), yet continue to aid the same number of students as before and 
in the same proportion by credit or free tuition, the figure representing 
what is done will be larger, but there is no corresponding increase in 
giving aid nor in payments of money ; nor is there decrease in 
receipts. Taking into consideration the serious disclosure for these 
treasury olSBicers which these tables contain, namely, that until Presi- 
dent Potter's inauguration the annual amount due from the State 
Grant to poor students was used for other purposes, there remains a 
debt in honor if not in equity to be discharged by aiding, as the Pres- 
ident has done, additional students. 

The reports of the President, the resolutions of the Trustees and all 
the documents and evidence show perfectly that the Trustees w^ere 
kept advised, from beginning to end, of everything the President had 
done in regard to the matter of the disbursement of scholarship aid. 
That they ratified by their assent everything of which this specifica- 
tion complains is equally clear. To charge the President with incom- 
petency, because he has done precisely what the Board of Trustees 
said he might and what they never objected to, seems to me prepos- 
terous. 

Near the close of his testimony Prof. Webster intimated that all this 
trouble might have been avoided if the President had adopted the 
college system which the malcontents demanded and w^hich the cor- 
poration has persistently refused to give them. They would have 
overlooked their pretended objections and grievences (their distrust of 
the President his incompetency ; the harm they maliciously whispered 
his continuance in office was doing) if they could only have got 
the laws of the college changed to suit themselves. This rather carries 
the idea that they attempted to get rid of the President simply to have 
a change in the laws and to have the college completely in their hands. 
Had the Trustees and President obeyed the conspirators it seems all, 
this might have been avoided, and the progress of the College in 
numbers, scholarship, reputation and endowments might have con- 
tinued without interruption. I might have stayed away and en- 
joyed my vacation. The counsel might have tarried in his tem- 
porary residence by the " many-sounding sea," and all the gentlemen 
here interested in this matter might have remained at home pursuing 
their usual avocations.j 



40 

I hate very much to discredit anything Prof. Webster says, but as 
to that or any other action on the part of the President satisfying him 
or preventing his continuing this .controversy, I don't believe a word of 
it. I think the Professor is a born intriguer, and that he can no more 
help conspiring against people that are placed above him than a 
drunkard can abandon his dram or an opium-eater his drug. To seek 
the overthrow of his superior oificer in every position he has held is 
probably the very habit of his life, and his aim would make this 
Faculty but a ring of inferiors in which he is easily first and to which 
no independent, able or distinguished professor is to belong or to be 
called. The Cassius of such a plot as this, assuming the role of a 
Christian Mephistopheles, but widens the influence of his destructive 
talents and his Nihilistic genius. It is he who has taken the active, 
though surreptitious part, in this opposition to the President. It is 
Webster who says to Prof. Lamoroux, " Brother Lamoroux, I wouldn't 
put myself out to stop disorder in chapel, you will only get your win- 
dows broken ; the students wont stand it ; it is the President's busi- 
ness to keep order^ not yours, and if he doesn't do it we can make 
charges against him and try him before the Trustees." It is Webster 
who says to the same Professor, in substance, " Professor, this mighty 
arm shall strike down every obstacle to the removal of Dr. Potter from 
the Presidency of this College, and if that obstacle happens to be a 
Professor of about your size and general appearance, I am sorry for 
you, but I can't help it ; down you go ! " And it is Webster that says 
to Prof. Ashmore, " I am going to make this my life's work ; if I have 
to. leave this college as a Professor, I will come back here as an Alum- 
nus Trustee, and I will devote the remainder of my life to the removal 
of President Potter from the headship of this college." It is he that 
has collated all these charges and brought them up here and 
taken care of them. If he found a little charge, too feeble to 
go alone, he picked it up, packed it in cotton wool, put hot 
bricks to its feet, fanned the breath of life into it; if he found a 
little charge, like that old story of Perkins' about Dr. Potter's men- 
tioning his services in the Board of Trustees, found it by the wayside, 
dying of old age and ill treatment, he played the good Samaritan, 
lifted it up and poured oil and wine into its wounds, set it upon his 
own shoulders, took it to Registrar Jenkins and said, " Take care of it, 
and when the Board of Trustees meet I will ' present it.' " What a 
set of charges he has got, to be sure ! lame, halt, blind, deaf, some of 
them hobbling on one leg, some of them having no legs to stand on at 
all ! As this evidence w^as coming out, I tried to rummage my memory 
to see if, in the history of this or any other State, such a set of charges 
had ever been brought against any public character. I could remem- 
ber only one, and that, owing, no doubt, to the fact that Prof. Webster 



41 

was not in existence at that time, was never made the subject of an 
investigation. The older members of the Board will recollect, and the 
young ones have certainly read, that when Governor Marcy was, I 
think, judge of the Supreme Court, a position in which his ex- 
penses were paid by the State, in his bill to the State he put 
in this item, " To one patch upon my breeches, 25 cents." The 
Whig press took it up, and " Marcy's patch " went skyward in a tem- 
pest of fun and newspaper squibs. It occurred to me that if Prof. 
Webster had been alive at that time and had been a Whig politician, 
it would have been the great opportunity of his life. To ascertain all 
the details about that patch, its length and breadth and superficial 
area, to find whether it exactly matched the remainder of the Gov- 
ernor's small clothes, to have questioned the Attorney-General whether 
or not a patch upon a judge's breeches was a proper charge against the 
State, to have written to the tailor to find whether the charge was 
actually 25 cents or only 20 or 24, and then, if there had been the 
slightest discrepancy in the item, to have got up a charge and specifi- 
cation — I should say a hundred specifications — and to have brought 
the matter before somebody and had it investigated — I think that 
would have been a task exactly suited to his taste and capacity. 
*' There is a tide in the affairs of men, that, taken at its flood, leads 
on to fortune ;" but it has to be " taken at the flood." Of course, it is 
not Prof. Webster's fault that his great opportunity came before he 
was born, and it is not to be denied that he has made the most of the 
lesser opportunity afforded by this controversy. 

I have always noticed that it is best to be entirely plain and frank 
and that it is just as well to call a spade a spade whenever you have 
occasion to mention that useful instrument, as to call it a teaspoon, and 
that it is not worth while to ignore notorious facts. There is no doubt, 
as I said once before, this is a peculiar court ; it contains attached rela- 
tives and friends of President Potter; that it also contains persons who 
for years have felt a greater or less degree of hostility to President 
Potter, and some who were elected under an expectation, at least, that 
they would act in opposition to him on opportunity, I think nobody 
would care to deny. I desire to say this, that by the position which 
you have taken, you have precluded yourselves from looking at this 
matter in any other aspect than according to the very right and justice 
of the case. If you remove him in this proceeding, you say to the 
community and to the world at large, that in these charges and speci- 
fications and in this evidence, you find matter which has convinced 
you as judges, that he is untrustworthy or incompetent, or both, and 
you send him forth with an ineffaceable brand upon himself, his family 
and his honored name. I presume you have considered these matters 
for yourselves ; that you have made up your minds to try this case 

4 



42 

exactly as though you Avere the judges of the highest tribunal in the 
land, and that the waves of prejudice and passion, however high they 
may run, shall break in vain against the adamantine barrier of your 
judgment-seat. I believe this, I say, because I know and you know 
and we all know that though no court may challenge your decision, yet 
it cannot escape the review of a sound and impartial public opinion. 
And when I say public opinion, I do not refer to the public opinion of 
Union College, I do not refer to the public opinion of the city of Sche- 
nectady, although I believe its best people are on the side of President 
Potter; I do not refer to the public opinion of such of the recent 
graduates of this institution, as come here under the influence of these 
Professors who have misled them to vote for Alumni Trustees opposed 
to the President who disciplined them ; or students who knew little of 
him because of his absorption in the needed endowment of the College. 
But I refer to the men who control the thought and hold the purse- 
strings of the great community to which Union College must look for its 
revenues and its students. 

Do you know what those men will say, if, upon such charges as these 
and upon such evidence as this, you remove the most efficient and suc- 
cessful President Union College has ever had throughout its long 
career ? They will say that he found the college wallowing in the slough 
of despond, that he raised it upon his shoulders and bore it to firm 
ground ; that, as was said of Alexander Hamilton, " he touched the life- 
less corpse of the credit " and reputation of Union College, '* and it rose 
and stood upon its feet " ; that you availed yourselves of his aid in the 
hour of your sorest need ; that you gladly and eagerly accepted the 
treasures which he poured into the coffers of the college, through his 
own personal eff'orts and personal solicitations ; and then, when the 
college had risen upon its feet and could walk alone without the aid of 
the President, then, like the swine in scripture, you turned and rent 
him. That is what men will say. That is what they are saying in 
their offices, in their counting-rooms, in their homes and in the news- 
papers all over this broad land where the name of Union College has 
been heard. What possible harm can result to the college, if those 
charges shall be dismissed by you as unsustained ? It is possible 
indeed that you may lose the services of these members of the Faculty. 
I certainly do not believe there is any difficulty in getting along with 
President Potter. He has less gall and bitterness than any man I 
ever saw. If any man of those who have been most active against 
him, should go to President Potter and should say to him, " There has 
been a misunderstanding between us; there are faults on both sides; 
let bygones be bygones ; here is my hand," why, the bowels of the 
President would yearn over that professor, as Joseph's yearned over 
his brethren. I know him. He has no more malice in him than he 



43 

had whose motto was, " Malice toward none, charity to all." Wlien 
these charges shall be dismissed, and the President exhonorated, when 
reckless plotting is ended and harmony restored, then it may well be 
that some of these Professors may continue to be like Jefferson's office- 
holders, of whom that eminent statesman is said to have remarked, in 
a somewhat complaining way, "that few died and none resigned." 
At any rate, the corporation ought to be glad to know that under no 
circumstances can it be deprived of the guidance and direction of 
Prof. Webster. Whatever occurs, the services of that artful tongue 
and scheming brain will still be available ; for have you not the de- 
claration from his own lips, lips that seem to have been touched with 
a live coal from the very altar of discord, that if he shall leave these 
classic halls as instructor, he will come back as alumni trustee, and 
though the remainder of his days may equal those of 

*' The many- wintered crow that leads the clanging- rookery home," 

all of them shall be devoted to the congenial task of the division 
and demoralization of this college ? Noble sentiment ! For pure 
disinterested benevolence, I know of no instance like it in history 
and but one in fiction ; and that is where Mrs. Gamp, that queen of 
monthly nurses and undertakers' assistants, in a burst of universal 
philanthropy, declared, " If I could only afford it, I would lay out all 
my fellow-creatures for nothing, such is the love I bear them." In 
emulation of that noble woman, Prof. Webster declares that he will 
keep Union College in hot water for the remainder of his life, without 
charging a cent for it, "such is the love he bears it!" But, in the 
name of common fairness and common decency, do not remove your 
President upon such charges as these, trumped up by a set of bitter 
conspirators who deficient in ^influence or means to help the College 
and lacking in principle to speak and act loyally and wanting in 
dignity to be silent rather than injurious and unmanly have whispered 
and gossiped and slandered and have scandalized iuto one another's 
ears, until they are soaked from head to feet with the dripping venom 
of their own "hatred malice and all uncharitableness." 

Gentlemen, I think you will be glad that this long discussion is 
about to be ended, at least upon our side. In a short time this court 
will break up and we shall part. I hope the court will ne^er meet 
again upon such an errand. May I not take with me the gratify- 
ing recollection that you rose to the level of this occasion and that 
you decided this painful controversy as men should decide, who 
hold in their hands to sustain or to destroy the sacred honor and price- 
less reputation of a fellow-citizen ? And so, Mr. Chairman and gen- 
tlemen of the Board of Trustees, with deep interest, it is true, but 
with no serious apprehension as to the result, I submit the case of 



44 

President Potter to your candid and sober judgment. The good Book 
says, " Judge not, lest ye be judged ; for with what judgment ye 
judge ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be 
measured to you again." To you, as to all others who occupy judicial 
positions, may be commended the words of that solemn warning. For 
if, upon the ridiculous and trivial charges which 1 have discussed 
before you, this corporation shall remove President Potter from his 
chosen life-work there is not one of you, citizen, lawyer or priest, that 
can aiford to receive from the righteous Judge of all the earth the same 
scant measure of justice that you will have meted to this defendant. 



